President’s visit to Valley attracts cheers and jeers
Backers form ‘train,’ as detractors glower
HIDALGO COUNTY — President Donald Trump sought refuge Tuesday in the Rio Grande Valley, brushing off threats of impeachment and calls for his resignation following last week’s storming of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
During his first speech since the rioting in Washington, D.C., Trump briefly spoke out against the violence that left five people dead, including a police officer, and trashed the Capitol.
“We believe in respecting America’s history and traditions, not tearing them down,” Trump said. “We believe in the rule of law and not in violence or rioting.”
But Trump’s visit had this region on edge Tuesday.
Hundreds of supporters organized a “Trump Train” in a show of solidarity, and critics of the president warned his appearance so close to last week’s violence was a danger to the community.
Some Democrats were warning their supporters to stay away from Trump’s route to prevent clashes.
“He’s just bringing trouble,” said Santos Chavarria, a 59-year-old resident of nearby Mission.
Chavarria was among dozens who gathered at a protest rally a few miles from a section of border wall south of Pharr where Trump delivered his speech.
Chavarria said that instead of talking about his divisive border wall, Trump should be helping fight COVID-19, which has ravaged Hidalgo County.
More than 1,900 people have died
from the disease in the county of about 870,000 people. That’s more deaths than all but two Texas counties: Harris and Dallas.
Chavarria said he would sleep better at night once Trump is out of office.
Others, including U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-harlingen, pleaded with Trump to cancel his visit, saying it was just too dangerous given the mood of the nation.
“The president should cancel this trip and focus on bringing harmony to this country in his waning days,” Vela said before Trump arrived.
Belying accusations that Trump’s popularity rests mainly with Anglo, working-class voters, the crowd awaiting the president on the border Tuesday was heavily Mexican American.
While well-wishers had driven in from elsewhere, many in the crowd identified themselves as being from Mcallen and other nearby border communities.
‘We got it done’
Although the general public was kept away from where Trump spoke, hundreds lined the roads near where he was speaking in hopes of catching a glimpse of the president near the border wall.
“It’s his legacy,” said Teresa Dial, who retired to Pharr two years ago and was part of a group that gathered just outside the security perimeter where Trump was speaking.
Dial said concerns that Tuesday’s events could spark another round of violence were ridiculous. She said she had no concerns that there would be any trouble.
Michigan resident Jim Bloomfield, another Trump supporter, said the president has taken way too much criticism from the media and should get more credit for his accomplishments.
“Everything he said he was going to do, he did it,” said Bloomfield, who changed plans for his vacation in Brownsville when he learned Trump was going to be nearby.
For Trump, the two-hour stop in South Texas was a chance to highlight what he sees as one of his biggest accomplishments.
“We worked long and hard to get this done,” Trump told the small group of supporters and Border Patrol agents at the base of a section of newly constructed wall. “They said it couldn’t be done. And we got it done.”
But as much as Trump wanted to tout the wall as an example of a “promise made, promise kept” as the White House declared, much of the construction near where he stood remains incomplete, leaving large gaps in a 10-mile stretch on either side.
When Trump ran for the White House in 2015, he promised a wall from Texas to California — more than 1,900 miles that would be paid for by Mexico.
Instead, his administration mostly has refurbished existing walls and fences and added only about 30 miles of barriers where there previously had not been any.
Mexico didn’t pay for any of it.
The Trump administration says 450 miles of border wall have been built during his administration.
Melissa Cigarroa, a landowner along the border near Laredo who also is an activist with the No Border Wall Coalition, said construction crews are working faster now as they try to get as much wall built as possible before Joe Biden can take office, hoping the new president won’t tear it down.
“Not one more foot,” she said is her message to the Biden administration.
Trump made clear he’s worried about what Biden will do.
“We can’t let the next administration even think about taking it down,” Trump said.
And as he did earlier in his administration, he warned of caravans of immigrants from Central and South America looking for “the gravy train” who are heading to the border already in anticipation of his tough policies being reversed.
“If our border security measures are reversed, it will trigger a tidal wave of illegal immigration,” he said.
Critics say the real damage has been the border wall and Trump’s immigration policies as a whole.
“The border wall construction work has done irreparable harm to the environment, Indigenous people, and communities along the southern border,” said Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the nonprofit Hispanic Federation.
Trump’s damage goes beyond just the wall, said Astrid Dominguez, director of the Border Rights Center with the Texas American Civil Liberties Union.
“Trump brought our asylum system to a halt, separated children from their parents, destroyed protected lands to further border wall construction, and emboldened CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) agents to operate with impunity,” Dominguez said.
While Trump made the border wall a top priority, he never had full support from Congress on it.
After Congress refused to give the White House $5 billion for the construction of the wall, Trump turned to using past Defense Department appropriations to cover some construction.
Almost $10 billion was diverted from Pentagon programs in 2019 and 2020, a controversial transfer that has been challenged in federal lawsuits.
Trump’s stop in Texas marked his 18th time visiting the state.
‘Lost fair and square’
In visiting Hidalgo County, Trump was in one of the Texas counties where he did the worst in the November election. Biden beat Trump in the county by 17 percentage points.
Trump carried Starr and Zapata counties, lightly populated border regions upriver from Mcallen.
“The election was lost fair and square, I suppose, but I’m here to support the president,” said Emede Tovar, 36, who had driven 60 miles from another border city with his wife and young daughter. “I wanted my daughter to see him. We’re here to say hi and bye.”
Several other Trump supporters pointed out that the president never has used the word “concede” in agreeing to a change in the White House.
They insisted Biden somehow would be removed from office in short order, perhaps leading to Trump’s return to power.
“I hope he is able to continue carrying the movement forward,” said Joe Garcia, 47, a middle school teacher. “What he stands for are conservative values, against abortion, against the illegals taking all the benefits, for making America great again. That’s what I like.”