Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
Rep. Veronica Escobar
- Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar. who represents El Paso, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that President Donald Trump isn't welcome in her community, following the mass shooting that left 20 people dead and dozens injured.
- "Words have consequences and the president has made my community and my people the enemy," she said. "He has told the country that we are people to be feared, people to be hated. He has done that at his rallies, he has done that through his Twitter."
- The FBI is currently investigating an anti-immigrant manifesto believed to be written by the El Paso shooter, which mimics ideas that have been flouted by the president.
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Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar said on Monday that President Donald Trump's words and actions concerning Latinos and immigrants played a role in the recent mass shooting in her community that left 20 people dead and dozens injured.
The Texas Democrat, who represents El Paso, said that as residents mourn the dead and try to heal, Trump is "not welcome" in her city.
"Words have consequences and the president has made my community and my people the enemy," Escobar said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "He has told the country that we are people to be feared, people to be hated. He has done that at his rallies, he has done that through his Twitter."
The FBI is currently investigating a hateful, anti-immigrant manifesto filled with white supremacist language believed to be written by the El Paso shooter. While the suspect wrote that his beliefs "predate Trump," the document mimics ideas that have been flouted by the president, the Republican party, and Fox
Throughout his tenure as president, critics say Trump has helped legitimize anti-immigrant views, bringing those beliefs from the fringe to the mainstream. Even before entering the White House, he ran on a nativist platform in order to tap into growing racial divisions.
In June 2015, when first announcing his plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, he claimed people crossing the border were "bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're bringing rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
During the last two years of his presidency, he has used rhetoric to dehumanize immigrants, filled his administration with people espousing anti-immigrant views, and enacted hardline policies to try and deport as many people as possible, while instilling widespread fear in immigrant communities across the country.
Several Democratic presidential candidates slammed Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric in the wake of this weekend's shootings. Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who is from El Paso, said on Sunday that Trump "doesn't just tolerate it, he encourages it, calling immigrants rapists and criminals and seeking to ban all people of one religion."
"These are white men motivated by the kind of fear that this president traffics in," O'Rourke added.
In early morning Twitter posts on Monday, the president linked the need for new gun control measures with his desire for immigration reform. He provided no details on how exactly he would bring together those two issues.
"Hispanic people have been dehumanized. They have been dehumanized by the president, by his enablers, by other politicians," Escobar said on "Morning Joe." "This is one of the lowest points in American history and if we don't recognize this as such, we will not have the turning point that we so desperately need as a country."
- Read more:
- Trump's chief of staff Mick Mulvaney downplayed guns as the cause of the El Paso shooting, blaming social media instead
- Pete Buttigieg says white supremacists 'feel validated' by Trump, in response to El Paso shooting
- Off-duty soldier describes how he scooped up children and carried them to safety during the El Paso shooting
"@sandrapatriot: @stephenfhayes WHAT U REALLY SHOULD B ANGRY ABT IS THE INVASION OF MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS TKING OVER AMERICA! NOT DonaldTrump
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2015