Beto O’Rourke: Migrants ‘Had No Choice But to Come Here’ Due to Climate Change

HOMESTEAD, Florida — Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) told demonstrators and the assembled media outside the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children that migrant children from Central America “had no choice but to come here” because climate change had ravaged their countries.

O’Rourke said that rising temperatures had created droughts, which made it more difficult for people to grow their own food. That, he said, forced them to undertake the arduous journey on foot to the U.S. border, and to cross illegally.

O’Rourke was the fourth presidential candidate to visit the protest outside the facility, where thousands of teenagers, most of whom arrived unaccompanied, are temporarily housed until they can be handed over to a sponsor in the U.S.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) was the first the protests: he was followed on Wednesday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and then several other candidates decided to visit as well, turning the protests into something of a presidential pilgrimate. O’Rourke was preceded an hour before by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

O’Rourke, who was greeted and briefed by local activists, turned his visit into a rally, spending roughly half an hour atop a ladder overlooking the fence around the facility.

How to watch President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address to Congress live

Climate groups sue Trump administration over EPA’s bombshell deregulation decision

Trump Admin Cancels Visas for 100,000 Foreign Nationals Who Don’t Meet American Standards

Developing: Bad News as DNA Results in Guthrie Kidnapping Come in to FBI

‘Devil in the Ozarks’ gets more prison time for escaping, now in supermax facility

Bald eagle floating on Hudson River ice rescued by NYPD

Minnesota Officials Forced to Sound the Alarms Over Fungal STD Outbreak

Watch: Whoopi Goldberg Rushes to Explain Why She Was in the Epstein Files Seeking to Use His Private Jet

Immigration judge blocks deportation of Columbia anti-Israel agitator

Sanders-endorsed Senate candidate knocked for alleged flip-flop to ‘have it both ways’ on key issue

Hollywood Star Arrested, Charged After Altercation: ‘Held Down Until Police Arrived’

NYC Board of Elections worker says ‘not my job to report anyone’ when asked about registering non-citizens

Gun store owner says FBI asked him to check firearm sales against list of names, pics in Guthrie case

Mike Lee calls Schumer’s ‘Jim Crow 2.0’ attack on voter ID bill ‘paranoid fantasy’

Palestinian activist accused of expressing desire to ‘kill Jews’ wins deportation case

Unlike other candidates, he was not content to peer over the fence, but delivered an impromptu speech.

“He who denies the stranger or the outcast, he also denies America,” O’Rourke said, citing Robert Kennedy.

“Instead of reuniting them [the teenagers] with their families, we are incarcerating them in tents in a for-profit facility with no oversight,” he added. He demanded that the Homestead facility, and every other like it, be shut down.
In Spanish, he declared: “We must reunite every boy and girl here with their family.”

He also urged the small crowd to wave to the teenagers inside the facility, barely visible in the distance, wearing bright orange caps.