[ad_1]
On Monday, President Trump will hold his first campaign rally of year at the Coliseum of El Paso County. , a Texas arena a stone's throw from the US-Mexico border.
It will not be the only major event in El Paso that night.
Former Democratic Congressman Beto O. Rourke will appear at the March for Truth "- at a local high school located one kilometer from the Coliseum – in hopes of countering the anti-immigrant stealth message of Trump.
"The President will visit El Paso on Monday. He will promise a wall and repeat his lies about the dangers that immigrants represent, "wrote O & # 39; Rourke on Medium, an online publishing platform that has seen all activity this week.
O 'Rourke, who publicly considered entering the race for the 2020 presidency, announced Friday night that he would join the residents of El Paso for a "peaceful march" on Monday. . Although he avoided calling Trump by name, it was clear that the event was meant to coincide with Trump's "Make America Great Again" rally in El Paso the same evening.
"We will meet lies and hate with truth and a vision for the future of the US-Mexican border, "said O & # Rourke, in a video message alongside her daughter, Molly. "Everyone is welcome."
"The Walk for Truth" is sponsored by several non-profit groups – including the Fronter Network for Human Rights and the El Paso Women's Walk – as well as more than 60 local musicians, organizers said. Protesters are encouraged to wear white; Representative Veronica Escobar (D-Tex.), Who won the former Congressional headquarters O & # Rourke, will also speak during the event.
"Trump's fixation on a wall of the border and his distortions of life in El Paso and along the border are unacceptable," wrote the march organizers on a Facebook page of the event . "Our communities will always be inclined to include immigrants, to oppose racism and to defend the truth. We must all choose to defend the truth or allow Trump to undermine his dignity and rights.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump touted El Paso as evidence that the walls of the border have the effect of lowering crime. this is false, as reported by Robert Moore, Philip Rucker and Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post:
Over the past 20 years, a number of published ratings have ranked El Paso as one of the The safest cities in the country, and FBI statistics show as in most major US cities, the crime rate of El Paso has declined since the mid-1990s.
The rate of violent crime in the city peaked in 1993, when more than 6,500 violent crimes were recorded, and this number dropped by more than 34% over the next 13 years, according to an analysis of crime data by El Paso Times According to the newspaper, two years before the construction in 2006, two years later, in 2011, the violent crime rate had increased by 17%.
By contrast, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico's sister city of El Paso, just across the border, has sometimes been one of the world's deadliest cities and has seen an increase in crime year-round. last. There were 543 murders in Juárez in 2016, 773 in 2017 and more than 1,100 last year, according to a tally held by local media.
It is not disputed that fencing has reduced the number of illegal crossings at the border with El Paso, but local leaders have said that it was wrong to suggest that the fence had an impact on violent crime.
In his long Medium post, O 'Rourke criticized Trump's "racist and inflammatory rhetoric" about the border and set out the reasons that he believed were American
"The President , using the same racist and inflammatory rhetoric of years past, seeks to build a wall, to take the children of their parents, to deploy the US military on American soil, to continue massive deportations and to end the protection Dreamers, "wrote O & # 39; Rourke. "In other words, he seeks in an administration to repeat all the mistakes of the past half-century. And with the past as a prologue, we know exactly how it will end.
O 'Rourke, who narrowly lost the race to the Senate race against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) In November, said he was in conflict over the situation. opportunity to join a group of already overcrowded Democratic candidates to run for president. In an interview Tuesday with talk show host Oprah Winfrey, O 'Rourke announced that he would make his decision by the end of the month.
For More:
A Texas City Councilor, called Ocasio-Cortez has "bimbo". on Twitter . He deleted his account.
Trump will highlight El Paso as proof that crime is better controlled. Statistics – and Beto O'Rourke – say the opposite.
The deployment of Trump's troops is armed with a "deadly" razor wire at the border. This city has enough.
[ad_2]
Source link