ATLANTIC - Beto O’Rourke, presidential candidate from El Paso, Texas, made a stop in Atlantic on Sunday afternoon to speak with over 100 people gathered at the Camblin Addition in Sunnyside Park.

He covered a number of topics ranging from immigration and the border to health care, the economy and education.

O’Rourke talked about immigration and the proposed border wall, noting that it was time can to “change our immigration laws to reflect our values and our reality,” adding that asking an immigrant “to do this the right way, and get into the back of the line - you may not realize that line spans 25 years to join your family.”

“I think we have a chance to live our values, right now whether we make the case along moral dimensions or the fiscal dimension (spending of taxpayer resources)

this is clearly the right thing to do. The current system is not working, and by working together we can make it much better, so you have my commitment to (work on that).”

He also said that spending money on violence prevention in the countries people were fleeing was a better investment than building a wall to keep people out.

Instead of a building a wall, he said if we “double what we are spending (on violence prevention in those countries),” to $1 billion, fewer children and their families, will feel they have to flee their countries, to come here.

In politics today, finding common ground was the way to get things done, O’Rourke said. He served six years as a Congressman, in the minority as a Democrat, but said he was able to help pass legislation that helped his constituents - by “focusing on it, and finding the common ground with Republicans to get it accomplished.” That law, which expanded mental health care for veterans, “was signed into law by Donald Trump, someone I agree with on almost nothing.”

He also talked about issues close to home for Iowans.

He recently visited Pacific Junction and Hamburg, and said he had talked to residents there about the flooding, and issues with levies and the Army Corps of Engineers.

“I just talked to two farmers whose fields are still underwater,” he said, “and they say the Army Corps just needs to ‘level with us about whether they are in the business of protecting human life, our farms, our families and our livestock or whether they are going to buy us out and we should go live somewhere else.’”

He also talked to people in Hamburg, who had part of levy dropped back down - “A levy that helped save their lives in 2011, and the Army Corps of Engineers said ‘You can pay $6 million to have this levy certified or we can pay $700,000 to take it down,’and they took it down.”

He said he thought the Army Corps of Engineers was “doing their absolute best,” but added, “I know that a lot of people, stakes holders in the communities along the Missouri River, feel left out of the solution.”

“They should have a seat at the table, and yes, I think (the Army Corps) can do a much better job, but it will have to come from listening to the people they serve.”

And on the Russian investigation, O’Rourke said he felt it was time for accountability.