El Paso is ready for Trump rally Monday

Five days ago, President Trump first shined the spotlight on El Paso in his State of the Union address.

“The border city of El Paso, Texas used to have extremely high rates of violent crime,” President Trump said in his address to the nation.

Now, his supporters are more than excited for his rally.

“El Paso is kind of like a shining star for support, because in this area, after they got a wall built, it lowered the crime significantly,” said William Owen, who was buying merchandise with Eva Owen.

Speaking before a nationally televised audience on CNN, El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said that statement is incorrect.

“Before the fence went up, we were one of the safest cities,” Mayor Margo said. “After the fence went up, we remained one of the safest cities.”​

On Monday, both Republicans and Democrats plan to state their support or opposition to the border wall.

“The division that we’re going to seeing the next couple days play out is going to be a bit manufactured,” said Dr. Todd Curry, an assistant political science professor at UTEP.

“We are failing, really, to grapple with the long-term immigration issues.” said Dr. Josiah Heyman, the director of UTEP’s Center for Inter-American and Border Studies. “So we have magical solutions like a wall.”