Robert Francis O’Rourke, a.k.a. Beto, took his campaign for president into Ciudad Juarez Sunday. He met with asylum-seekers and bashed the current American president and his immigration policies. Like ya do. He’s chosen his side in the political debate and it’s not with legal immigrants.

Beto is trying desperately to get his presidential campaign back on track if it ever really was on track. Fellow Texan and real Latino candidate, Julian Castro, made some inroads into attention shown to him during the Democrat debate last week. While Beto was once the favored Texas candidate in the race for the nomination, the tide has turned. Beto one-upped other Democrats and crossed the border into Mexico to show what a compassionate guy he is, or something.

In his first international trip as a White House hopeful, the former congressman traveled to Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from his native El Paso, Texas, to meet what his campaign described as “individuals and families directly impacted by Donald Trump’s cruel and inhumane policies.”

A fluent Spanish speaker, O’Rourke met around a table at a shelter with immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, some of whom wept as they told of being denied entry into the U.S. while their asylum claims are processed. Many said they were terrified they’d be sent back to their home countries, where their lives had been threatened because of abusive spouses, street gang violence or drug smugglers.

He live-streamed his trip on Facebook because he knew it would be a sure way to garner publicity. Is it a coincidence that the second quarter FEC deadline was Sunday? Maybe I’m being too cynical. Or not. He did have a tweet for both the trip into Mexico and one for fundraising.

We must end the Remain in Mexico policy, end metering, end family separation, and end the detention of those who pose absolutely no threat. But we must go far beyond that and fix the entire system.

Earlier this year, I wrote a plan to accomplish this:https://t.co/1QH2GoTU21

— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) June 30, 2019

This is a campaign powered not by PACs, but by people. I am so grateful to everyone who has become a part of our movement; and I hope you chip in one more time before our deadline tonight to show the strength of our people powered campaign. https://t.co/O97QUZeh70

— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) July 1, 2019

O’Rourke is critical about the Remain in Mexico policy. Beto has been promoting the most radical of immigration reform policies, while Julian Castro had set his sights on his own extreme ideas taking the lead in the open borders crowd’s support. One major difference became apparent during the debate – Castro wants to decriminalize crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Beto wasn’t ready to go that far.

He blames those being forced to wait on “the Trump administration’s unlawful ‘Remain in Mexico’ program,” which has allowed the United States to return thousands of Central Americans to Mexican border cities as they wait to hear about their asylum claims. It is meant to reduce the attractiveness of U.S. asylum requests that in the past had allowed claimants to remain in the U.S. for years as their cases wound their way through the courts.

Just in case pandering to asylum-seekers wasn’t enough to boost his appeal to Democrat primary voters, Beto held a rally outside the U.S. Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas, near his hometown of El Paso. The Clint facility has been in recent news stories for over-crowded conditions for illegal alien children. Last week, O’Rourke traveled to Homestead, Florida, near the Miami debate site, to visit a facility that houses illegal alien children, like many of the Democrats, did either before the debate or after it. His visit to Clint came a day after Castro’s visit to the same facility Saturday.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) rallied outside the U.S. Customs and Border Protection station in Clint, TX, today, June 30, 2019. Lawyers and doctors described poor conditions at the facility earlier this month. (© Joel Angel Juárez.) @ZUMApress pic.twitter.com/RDqYnTzigq

— Joel Angel Juárez (@jajuarezphoto) June 30, 2019