SAN DIEGO (Border Report) -- About a month ago, Christina Pascucci quit her job as a news anchor and reporter in Los Angeles and launched her U.S. Senate campaign.
Pascucci, a Democrat who has never been in politics, is vying for Sen. Dianne Feinstein's former post and is running against Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, both representatives from California who are already serving in Congress.
Other candidates include Congresswoman Barbara Lee and former baseball player Steve Garvey.
"I am a long shot for sure, my opponents have the whole Democratic establishment behind them with national name recognition, but polls show they still don’t have high poll numbers which means people are not excited about the options they see,” said Pascucci. "I had a great job, I was able to see a lot of the problems in our state and our country and I felt that I can do better.”
Pascucci spent Friday morning touring the border between San Diego and Tijuana, including an area where migrants have been congregating for months between two border barriers about two miles west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
Through the 30-foot bollard fence, she interacted and talked with asylum seekers from all over the world.
"It was really impactful to hear how different their stories were and where they came from, if it’s Pakistan, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Ecuador, all over the world, and one of the things it showed me is with all of our problems in the U.S., it's still a country people want to come to for a better life.”
Pascucci told Border Report immigration reform will be one of her top priorities.
"This should’ve been handled a long time ago not only from a national security perspective but also a humanitarian perspective. What these people go through is not right," she said. "It takes years from an asylum seeker to be seen by a judge in the U.S. That needs to change now. You need to have more judges to be able to process asylum seekers. We need more Border Patrol agents so they can handle the influx of thousands of migrants along our border every single day.”
In the afternoon, the 38-year-old San Fernando Valley native planned a visit to Tijuana to meet with immigration officials south of the border.
"We're going to go to a processing center, meet with government officials on the Mexico side. I want to understand how this entire process is working in our current infrastructure system and what can be done immediately to start fixing it," said Pascucci.
The California primary is scheduled for March 5.
The top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the runoff in November.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/CqvMW0f
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