The Texas border is often a talking point in state and national politics. But what do the politicians who live there have to say about it?

As part of Texas Standard’s 10 birthday year , our team broadcast a live show from the University of Texas at El Paso and invited two prominent El Pasoans to talk about how the city is perceived and what is happening locally.

Former Congressman Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, and former El Paso Mayor Dee Margo, a Republican, both said that there is a lot the national narrative gets wrong about the city they call home.

“El Paso of the 254 counties is one of the toughest to get to from the rest of the state,” O’Rourke said. “It means that too often we are left overlooked or forgotten or by those in power.”

Margo served in the Texas House in the Republican Party. But mayoral offices in Texas are nonpartisan, and Margo said that is a key part of how he approached the job as the city’s 51st mayor.

“I always told people when I was running, I was an El Pasoan first before I was ever a Republican. And that’s the way I approach things,” he said. “But we’re very unique here. We’ve been here since 1659, 100 years before the United States was ever founded. Our initial population was on the south side of the Rio Grande and until 1848, that’s when our population, with the beginning of Fort Bliss, started moving on the north side. And then in the 1880s, the railroads came in.

“But we’re one region and we have been for over 300 years. We’re the largest bi-national, bi-cultural bilingual region in the Western Hemisphere, we’re the largest U.S. city on the Mexican border, we’re the 32nd largest city in the United States, and we’re the sixth largest city in Texas.”

O’Rourke echoed a similar sentiment, saying that El Paso defies categorization in many ways.

“You will not find something like El Paso and Ciudad Juárez – two communities in two countries, two cultures, two languages, two people who come together,” he said. “You come to El Paso, a quarter of those with whom we live were born somewhere else. They chose us, and by their very presence, I think, have made us such a successful community.

“I think that’s something that most of the rest of the country doesn’t understand, and it’s something we can offer and I think help make America even greater in the process.”

However, O’Rourke said El Paso is not immune from national rhetoric against immigration. He cited the Walmart shooting in 2019, when a gunman drove across Texas and killed 23 people in El Paso.

“Someone inspired by President Trump’s rhetoric drove 600 miles from Allen, Texas and murdered, slaughtered, 23 of our fellow El Pasoans claiming he came here to repel an invasion of Hispanics who were gonna take over this state, and said he came to kill Mexicans,” O’Rourke said. “This community. Its resilience, its strength, its defiance of that hatred and that bigotry and these really un-American sentiments, I think not only looked out for and protected one another here in El Paso, I think it showed this country who we are at our best.”

When asked about the direction the Democratic Party should take moving forward to recover from the presidential loss in 2024, O’Rourke said the party needs to be able to acknowledge past mistakes. He also took a moment to acknowledge Joe Biden, who was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer .

“We can honor him and the incredible job he did as president, while also acknowledging – and I think Democrats have to do this – that we as a party made a terrible mistake in not having an open primary and not putting our best and brightest forward, and not defeating Donald Trump,” he said. “He represents an existential threat to this country, nowhere more so than El Paso, Texas, given his attack on immigrant and frontline border communities like ours.

“We need to say, not only did we run the wrong candidate, we didn’t acknowledge legitimate concerns on immigration, on inflation, on other issues that were deeply concerning to Americans.”

O’Rourke did not say whether he plans to run for office in the future — but he said he hasn’t ruled it out.

“One of the things I can do that I can offer to the country right now is bring people together: Republicans, Democrats, independents,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out how I can be as helpful and useful to this country at this moment of truth. And if it is to run, wonderful.

“And you know, and the folks here know, I am not afraid of a challenge. I love being out there with people. I love the campaign trail. But if that’s not the right thing for the people of Texas in this country, then it’s important that I stand back and allow others to do that.”

Margo said he also had critiques about the politics and policies of the last four years — he said he doesn’t think as much got done as could have gotten done. Margo also said he doesn’t think state lawmakers keep El Paso in mind — or really understand the city and its nuances.

“When I served in the Legislature, I was the only Republican from the border, so at least I could speak to the caucus and help educate them,” he said. “We’re still an unknown jewel. When I served in the Legislature in 2011 and 2012, it was said that 60% of the Texas House of Representatives had never even been to El Paso.

“So when I was mayor, I tried to bring out as many mayors as I could, especially the first immigration crisis where we became considered as ground zero nationally.”

That wave of increased immigration started in October of 2018 and continued until July of 2019.

“I would bring mayors down here and explain to them this is who we are, where we are,” Margo said. “But I remember the national media, especially from the East Coast, calling me to come out to interview me about immigration. … They’d never been here.

“I would go through all our demographics – we’re due south of Albuquerque, we’re 4,000 feet above sea level, largest Hispanic region in the Western Hemisphere, 2.7 million people with an average age of 32 – and yet they still would not understand it until they came out here.”

Margo said he wants to see El Paso have a platform in discussion about the future demographics of Texas as a whole.

“We’re 85% Hispanic. The demographer of Texas says within 20 years, Hispanics will be the majority [statewide]. We should be the area that’s the model for the future of Texas,” he said. “We oughta be the center for immigration reform.

“Both parties have been culpable in their failure to do something about immigration reform since 1986. It is not all Republican, and it is not all Democrat; it is both. No one has taken the leadership. …We should be the center of that to show the rest of the nation … We have a border here, but we’re one region. Families, culture, commerce, both sides.”

Margo wants to see El Paso attract more commercial investment to increase the city’s tax base.

“Texas is still based on real estate taxes for revenue, and ours is distorted in that over 60% of our tax base is residential. So what we need to do in El Paso is attract more commercial investment,” he said. “That’s what I tried to focus on when I was mayor. Not much happened over the last four years. We need to do more in the way of expansion of our downtown. A downtown drives a city, and we did nothing for the last four years.”

Margo cited La Nube museum, which broke ground when he was in office, as an example of how to revitalize El Paso’s downtown corridor.

“I chaired the first quality of life bond election back in, I guess it was the ’90s or early 2000s, when we did the museums downtown and moved the history museum down there,” he said. “We need to continue to build that. Our convention space is not large enough to attract the conventions, yet we build two new hotels.”

Margo envisions a future for El Paso with bustling commerce and educational research to support a thriving economy and city, he said.

“We need to continue the educational investments we’re doing at UTEP, Texas Tech, and the expansions there,” he said. “I serve on the Oversight Committee of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. We’re doing $300 million a year in grants for research and prevention.”