During a Senate Judiciary hearing on smuggling at the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday, Booker invoked a more personal approach during his questioning – similar to a potential rival for the Democratic nomination, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who frequently live streamed trips to the southwest border and captured the national spotlight during his unsuccessful bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz.
Booker recalled his own recent trip to the border before unleashing a forceful line of questioning on Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan about turning migrants away at legal ports of entry, thus pushing them back into the perilous circumstances they hope to leave behind.
“I’ve gone down myself as you know crossed into Mexico around midnight one night, I tried to come over and saw with my own eyes how people were being turned around and was told myself as an individual not to go into Mexico because it would be too dangerous for me to walk there,” the former Newark mayor began.
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