Amid his push for a border wall and claims of a humanitarian crisis at the border with Mexico, President Donald Trump is set to hold a rally Monday night in at the Coliseum in El Paso, Texas, just a few blocks from the border.
The "Make America Great Again" rally is scheduled to start 7 p.m. MT (9 p.m. ET) at the El Paso County Coliseum at 4100 East Paisano Drive, with doors opening at 4 p.m MT (6 p.m. ET). Tickets for the event are free, and are available on the Trump campaign website. The event will be livestreamed via KVIA, the ABC-affiliate television station in El Paso. The stream is embedded below:
It will be the president's first official visit to El Paso and he is expected to make his case for the wall.
"Will be heading to El Paso very soon. Big speech on Border Security and much else tonight," Trump tweeted late morning Monday. "Tremendous crowd! See you later! "
Will be heading to El Paso very soon. Big speech on Border Security and much else tonight. Tremendous crowd! See you later!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2019
The Trump campaign's chief operating officer, Michael Glassner, said in a statement: "As the president continues his fight to secure our border, there's no better place to demonstrate that walls work than in El Paso."
Trump mentioned El Paso during his State of the Union address last week advocating for the wall.
"The border city of El Paso, Texas, used to have extremely high rates of violent crime—one of the highest in the country, and considered one of our nation's most dangerous cities. Now, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of our safest cities," Trump said. "Simply put, walls work and walls save lives. So let's work together, compromise, and reach a deal that will truly make America safe."
People of El Paso quickly noted that the city has been ranked among the safest in the country since crime began to decrease in the late 1990s.
The president's rally comes four days before the nation could fall into another government shutdown. In late January, after the longest shutdown in United States history, Trump reopened the government for three weeks with ongoing negotiations planned with Democrats on funding for the wall. The president has stated he is considering declaring a national emergency to construct the wall without the approval of Congress.
Trump's rally will be met with an opposing rally at the same time, featuring former Democratic congressman Beto O'Rourke, a native of El Paso and a potential 2020 presidential candidate. The "March for Truth: Stop the Wall, Stop the Lies" event, hosted by Women's March El Paso, the Border Network for Human Rights and several dozen other organizations, is slated to start 5 p.m. MT (7 p.m. ET) at Bowie High School, just a mile away from the coliseum.
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