Texas Mayor Corrects Donald Trump's Border Remarks: 'Not the Reality'

The mayor of a city on the Texas-Mexico border has rejected Donald Trump's claim that "the people that are coming into our country" over the southern border are coming from prisons, mental asylums and are terrorists.

The former president made the comments during a visit to the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, on Thursday accompanied by the state's governor, Greg Abbott. President Joe Biden also made a trip to the southern border on Thursday at Brownsville, Texas, where he urged Republicans to back a stalled bipartisan bill aimed at boosting border security and providing aid to American allies.

Speaking about people crossing from Mexico into the U.S, Trump said: "They're coming from jails, they're coming from prisons and they're coming from mental institutions, and they're coming from insane asylums and they're terrorists. They're being let into our country and it's horrible."

Victor Trevino, the mayor of Texan border city Laredo, rejected these comments during an appearance on CNN.

After being shown a clip of Trump's remarks, he said: "We have to have the ability to be cognizant of what the facts are. We don't see what he's saying, this is not the reality... I'm born and raised in Laredo all my life and I know this is not the facts."

A clip of Trevino's remarks was shared on X, formerly Twitter, by the Acyn account which posts footage from American politics. It received more than 100,000 views and 1,500 reposts from other X users.

Newsweek reached out to representatives of Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign by email at 3:15 a.m. ET on Friday. This article will be updated if they wish to comment.

Trevino, who was elected as Laredo's mayor in 2022 as a nonpartisan candidate, also met with Biden during his visit to the state on Thursday.

Discussing their interaction with local outlet KGNS News, he said: "It's a great thing that he came here to Brownsville to listen to our perception, our reality, of what things happen here on the border. I was able to have a one-to-one conversation at length with him.

"He's very interested in our border and we have to make sure that he perceives what we live here, we have to change the narrative of only bad news for the border, we have to let him know that there's a great amount of commerce, a great amount of activity and our cities are safe. Laredo's one of the safest cities in the United States."

A Laredo Morning Times report from October 2023 indicated that Laredo was "on track for its third-lowest total of homicides in a decade with five recorded through nearly 11 months." The outlet specified that "homicides locally have been at a similar level the past 11 years but overall continue to remain low compared to the figures for the state of Texas."

During his visit, Biden was asked about the death of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia. Police believe she was murdered by a 26-year-old Venezuelan, who U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement say entered the country illegally.

As he walked away from the podium an unknown person shouted: "Mr. President, do you bear any responsibility for Laken Riley's death?" Biden didn't respond and it wasn't clear whether he had heard the question.

Tensions over the Texas-Mexico border erupted in January when the Supreme Court ruled federal agents could remove razor wire placed by the Texas National Guard to disrupt illegal immigration on the orders of Abbott. In response, Abbott released a statement saying Texas was being subject to an "invasion" and invoked its "constitutional authority to defend and protect itself."

He was backed by Trump, the clear favorite for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, who has made clamping down on illegal immigration a key component of his campaign. The former president urged other Republican governors to send National Guard troops to Texas in support of Abbott's efforts.