President Trump will arrive in El Paso on Wednesday, where top Democrats have said he should stay away, local officials have promised a cool reception, and many residents believe his overheated anti-immigrant rhetoric was a factor in the weekend’s mass shooting.
Local Democratic congresswoman Veronica Escobar said Trump “is not welcome here,” and 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke — whose House seat Escobar was elected to last year — announced he would attend a demonstration against the visit.
A protest is planned for a park close to the scene of the shooting at a Walmart superstore, where the parking lot now serves as a makeshift memorial with flowers, cards, and candles. “El Paso braces for president’s visit,” ran one of the headlines in the El Paso Times previewing the visit.
Jose Rodriguez, Democratic state senator for El Paso, said it was difficult to see Trump as the consoler-in-chief given his history of railing against immigrants who make up much of the local community.
“I know he wants to come to provide condolences and visit some of the injured at the hospitals, but it really is not the right time,” he told the Washington Examiner. “How can we trust his condolences when his messages change from day to day?
Trump is expected to arrive in El Paso after visiting Dayton, Ohio, where 10 people were shot dead early on Sunday morning. The motive for that attack is still unknown. But in El Paso, where 22 people were killed hours earlier, many people believe a manifesto published by the alleged gunman echoes the rhetoric deployed by Trump in his attacks on immigrants.
But some El Paso residents said that they were prepared to give the president the benefit of the doubt if he was genuine in trying to bring people together.
Martha Vasquez, a 45-year-old nurse, was among those pausing for a moment of reflection in front the memorial in El Paso. “He is the president,” she said. “El Paso is forgiving. The families … some of them have forgiven the shooter. We have love in our hearts, but he needs to choose his words more carefully.”
She added that she was horrified to see Trump trying to score points on Twitter with a late-night attack on Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic presidential candidate who counts El Paso as his hometown.
El Paso’s Republican mayor Dee Margo said it was right that Trump should visit. “He’s coming out here on Wednesday. And I want to clarify for the political spin that this is the office of the mayor of El Paso in an official capacity welcoming the office of the president of the United States, which I consider is my formal duty.”
Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1% in the Democrat Primary, should respect the victims & law enforcement – & be quiet!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2019
Organizers of the protest rally hope thousands of people will assemble in a nearby park to show their anger at the way the president has vilified immigrants ever since he launched his presidential campaign in 2015 by branding Mexican migrants as rapists and drug smugglers.
“The violence that has horrified our city was unquestionably motivated by the rhetoric and policies Donald Trump has popularized and the falsehoods he has spread about our city,” the Sun City Activists, which will be part of the protest, declared.
El Paso has come under particular scrutiny during the past year with the rapid rise in migrants arriving from Central America seeking asylum.
Trump has frequently claimed that a border wall built in the city turned it from “one of the most dangerous cities” to “one of the safest.” Those comments riled local leaders who cited FBI figures suggesting El Paso had long been safer than other cities of the same size.
On Monday, Trump called on the country to defeat white supremacy and bigotry. Shortly before leaving the White House, he said his critics were motivated by partisan politics and denied his words had stoked hate.
“I don’t think my rhetoric does at all — I think my rhetoric brings people together,” he said.
