The Texas border city where Donald Trump just spoke has an overwhelmingly Latino population
Real-estate magnate and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump traveled on Thursday to the Texas border city of Laredo, a city whose population is overwhelmingly Latino.
Based on the US Census Bureau's 2009-2013 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, the city's residents overwhelmingly identify as Hispanic or Latino, with Mexican origins. More than one-quarter of the population is foreign born.
Here's how Laredo's immigrant and Latino populations compare to the US as a whole:
Trump's visit to the city came amid the continued backlash over his harsh rhetoric on illegal immigration. During his campaign-launch speech last month, Trump claimed the Mexican government sends "rapists" and drug-runners, among other criminals, across the border. He has since doubled down - and even gone further - on those comments, highlighting illegal immigration as a central theme of his campaign.
The Laredo trip comes at a time when Republican leaders have increasingly fretted about how to handle Trump while they attempt to court Latino voters ahead of the 2016 election. Many GOP strategists have worried that Trump's rhetoric will sour the party's appeal to Latinos. But in an interview on Wednesday, Trump warned the Republican Party that he would think about running as a third-party candidate if they weren't "fair" to him.