Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke unveiled a sweeping immigration plan filled with experiences from his border hometown of El Paso.

The plan — officially released Wednesday — includes reforms to the asylum and naturalization system, calls for a $5 billion investment in Central America and would halt President Donald Trump's border wall.

“We want to reverse the chaos and the inhumanity visited upon our fellow human beings by the Trump administration. We want order based on a recognition of our common humanity," O'Rourke said.

El Paso is on the forefront of arriving waves of thousands of migrants and controversial hard-line Trump border policies.

Most of migrants are asylum seekers fleeing violence and poverty in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in the Northern Triangle region of Central America.

More border news:Private border wall built without permits, says Sunland Park mayor

Immigration is one of the cornerstones of O'Rourke's campaign banking on his experience growing up on the border.

O'Rourke's plan, titled "In Our Own Image," was created in consultation with immigration lawyers and advocates spearheading El Paso's response to the migrant influx.

“It’s just really important to me that any policy we pursue be informed by the people it’s intended to serve," O'Rourke said in an interview with the El Paso Times.

Some highlights of Beto's immigration plan are:

Work with Congress for a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, including "Dreamers" brought to the U.S. as children.

Increase visa caps, end a green-card backlog and make the naturalization process easier.

Add U.S. Customs and Border Protection staff to the ports of entry to reduce wait times and fight drug smuggling. Halt work on Trump's border wall.

End the controversial "Metering" and "Remain in Mexico" policies that make asylum seekers wait in Mexico.

Streamline asylum process by adding judges, interpreters and court staff, including deploying 2,000 lawyers to the border to improve right to counsel.

Work with other nations and invest $5 billion for development, security and improvements in the Northern Triangle.

Address impunity, corruption and weak institutions that benefit the "governing elites" in the Northern Triangle, which is made up of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

O'Rourke, joined by his wife, Amy, discussed the plan on Tuesday at a round table with a dozen El Paso immigrants, immigration advocates and lawyers.

The El Paso Times and a CNN news crew were allowed at the gathering.

Get news on the border from the border. Get a digital subscription to the elpasotimes.com.

The 90-minute talk took place at a picnic table on a grassy hill of the Chamizal National Memorial next to the border.

The Chamizal, which is steps away from the steel border fencing that separates El Paso and Juárez, is symbolic of the friendship between the U.S. and Mexico and commemorates the peaceful settlement of an international land dispute after the Rio Grande switched course.

Immigrant lives on the line

The immigration system needs to be fixed, said immigrants, including an Iraq War veteran, an immigration lawyer, a muralist and business owners.

"Our lives are literally on the line here," said David Gamez, an undocumented immigrant "Dreamer" who is a computer science student at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Bowie High School teacher Joel Rodriguez wore a blue baseball cap with the words "Immigrants Make America Great," a riff on the Trump slogan "Make America Great Again."

Rodriguez came to the U.S. without papers as a child, graduated from Bowie High School, gained U.S. citizenship became a teacher and now helps undocumented students in a similar situation to his own.

More:Guatemala mother tells U.S. court she'd rather be sent home than wait in Mexico any longer

El Paso immigration lawyer Linda Rivas described how some of her clients from Central America were kidnapped in Juárez after they were returned to Mexico after making an asylum claim in the United States. They were later released.

Asylum seekers are sent to Juárez under the Trump administration's Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly called the Remain in Mexico policy, she said.

"I have never had clients who are in so much danger," said Rivas, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.

Family reunification

The O'Rourke immigration plan includes family reunification proposals, including ending a lifetime ban for violations of immigration law.

The proposal was inspired by the case of Edgar and Maricruz Falcon. Edgar Falcon described how current immigration law doesn't allow him to bring his wife to the United States.

In 2013, O'Rourke attended the wedding of Edgar Falcon and his wife, Maricruz, on the El Paso-Juárez border at the middle of the Paso Del Norte international bridge that overlooks the Rio Grande.

Falcon is a U.S. citizen from El Paso and his wife is a Mexican citizen who under a 1996 law is barred from ever reentering the U.S. after lying about her citizenship when she was 14 years old.

O'Rourke attended the wedding after Falcon told him about his situation at one of the former congressman's town hall meetings.

Falcon described his wife as "the woman of my dreams."

"I love my wife. Now, we have an eight-month-old. She's beautiful," he said. "I have the struggle of leaving my wife in Mexico and coming to work here in the United States of America."

Migration and U.S. drug consumption

Changes to laws, policies and immigration courts are necessary but there is also a need to discuss the role that the U.S. plays in Latin America, said Ruben Garcia, executive director of Annunciation House, which oversees a network of migrant shelters in the El Paso area

"I also think it is very, very important that we address the reality of drug consumption in the United States, the transfer of billions and billions of dollars into Mexico and Central America, which then feeds the kind of violence that pushes people out," Garcia said.

"And when they cannot protect themselves and they feel no choice but to flee and they arrive at our doors and we look at them with this puzzlement, ‘What are you doing here?’

"When in fact, 'what I’m doing here' is connected to the transfer of drug consumption funds into those countries," he said.

Immigrant influx:New Casa del Refugiado 500-bed migrant shelter opens at vacant El Paso warehouse

"I do not believe that we can speak about immigration policy separate from the consequences of the drug consumption that is happening in the United States and the entire issue of addiction," Garcia said.

2,200 migrants on Memorial Day

The influx of migrants in El Paso has has not slowed down.

On Memorial Day, U.S. Border Patrol officials in El Paso said they had their busiest day during the recent influx of migrants that began last year.

The Border Patrol reported that more than 2,200 undocumented migrants were detained in the El Paso Sector, including 1,850 taken into custody in El Paso between Executive Center Boulevard and Midway Drive.

More:Immigrant asylum seekers risk everything to give children chance at a better life in US

More than 130,000 migrants have been detained in the El Paso Sector this fiscal year, compared with 16,000 at the same time last year, the Border Patrol reported.

El Paso Sector covers far West Texas and all of New Mexico. The federal fiscal year began in October.

Daniel Borunda may be reached at 546-6102; dborunda@elpasotimes.com; @BorundaDaniel on Twitter.