BOISE — Boise welcomed its first Democratic presidential candidate Tuesday for the 2020 election. On his early-campaign voyage to visit all 50 states, the Boise State Young Democrats hosted politician Julián Castro at the Student Union on campus.
Castro served as the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban development for three years under the Obama administration. He is a former mayor of his native San Antonio, Texas.
He shared his positions with 6 On Your Side on key topics facing the nation and the Boise community locally. For one, he said he thinks border funding should be assessed differently.
"I believe that we should take a different approach than what the President has laid out; that we should invest in things like our ports of entry to stop the illegal drugs and human trafficking that too often happen across the border."
When it comes to housing, he said he's looking to invest for a key group of Americans.
"The people here in Boise know that the rents have been going up tremendously. That in many places we have a rental affordability crisis. Uh, as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, I saw that across the United States. If I'm president, I want to make investments in more housing that is affordable to the middle class."
Castro also told us that if he were elected president, he would attempt to make the country more unified rather than divided and he intends to focus on the future instead of the past.
