Houston Chronicle 2/10/2019
When the president steps foot in El Paso this morning, it’ll be the seventh time he’s visited Texas for a campaign rally. He’s been here to look things over after Hurricane Harvey, to campaign for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and he’s been in and out of the state for fundraisers.
Is it too much to hope that this time he’ll learn something about the Lone Star State?
“El Paso, Texas used to have extremely high rates of violent crime — one of the highest in the entire country, and considered one of our nation’s most dangerous cities,†Trump said during his State of the Union address last week. “Now, immediately upon its [the fence’s] building, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of the safest cities in our country.â€
That’s unequivocally wrong. All Texans know that El Paso lies directly across the border from Juarez, where murder and kidnappings have at times overwhelmed local authorities. We also know that El Paso itself has for decades been universally considered one of the safest cities in America.
The border fence completed in 2009 didn’t make that so. The crime rate, and especially the rate of violent crimes, had been falling for nearly 20 years before that fence was completed.
That El Paso has been safe for decades is borne out by more than FBI stats. Elected officials from both parties have called out Trump’s falsehood repeatedly in recent days.
“El Paso was NEVER one of the MOST dangerous cities in the U.S,†Mayor Dee Margo, a Republican, said on Twitter last week. “We’ve had a fence for 10 years and it has impacted illegal immigration and curbed criminal activity. It is NOT the sole deterrent. Law enforcement in our community continues to keep us safe.â€
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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Welcome-Mr-President-Here-s-the-truth-about-13605577.php