as a congressman, he held at least one town hall meeting every month. in march 2013, o'rourke and republican steve pearce of new mexico introduced the border enforcement accountability, oversight, and community engagement act. in november 2014, o'rourke was against barack obama's deferred action policy that used an executive action to bypass congress in order to spare approximately 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, saying "the motive is noble, but the means are really hard to stomach."