Donald Trump held an anti-immigration rally in El Paso on Monday night, but most of the people in attendance were not from the border city.
According to NBC News political reporter Ali Vitali, the “majority of the people” attending the president’s rally “were not from El Paso.”
Video:
WATCH: Why did Trump choose El Paso, a city he lost by big margins? @alivitali is on the ground@KatyTurNBC: “The majority of people that she’s seen walking in… were not from El Paso. They were driving from hours away… so he’s going to get a protest tonight.†#MTPDaily pic.twitter.com/SZNQJh35dK
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— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) February 11, 2019
MSNBC’s Katy Tur explained:
Ali Vitali has been standing out with the crowds and she says the majority of the people that she’s seen walking in … were not from El Paso. They were driving from hours away, hour, two hours, sometimes nine hours away. We would see that a lot during the campaign, didn’t necessarily matter where he was having it, people would come in from all over. So he’s going to get a protest tonight and he’s going to get loyalists as well. He’s also going to get a potential 2020 contender in Beto O’Rourke.Â
El Paso knows Trump’s full of it on immigration
The reason that most of Trump’s rallygoers are from elsewhere is likely because the city of El Paso sees right through his immigration lies.
Since his State of the Union address, when he lied about El Paso being a crime-ridden city before they constructed a border fence in 2008, Trump has seen major pushback from both parties.
As I wrote last week, even El Paso’s Republican Major Dee Margo said Trump’s border wall claims are nonsense. The city has consistently ranked among the safest in the country, with or without the fence.
According to Factcheck.org, the crime rate in El Paso has been on the decline since the early 1990s – well before the barrier existed.
In other words, El Paso is a living, breathing example of just how flawed Trump’s immigration argument is – so flawed that not even the people who live there are willing to show up to hear it.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
