Banners featuring the slogan “Finish The Wall” were hung from the El Paso, Texas, venue where President Trump will hold a campaign rally on Monday night.
The rally, which is being held at El Paso County Coliseum at 9 p.m., happens as the president continues to press for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
{mosads}Trump last week in his State of the Union address used the border city of El Paso as an example of border walls working. He said during the speech that El Paso “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,” he said.
Multiple local officials, including El Paso Mayor Dee Margo (R), said that the remarks were untrue.
Officials in El Paso County passed a resolution earlier on Monday stating that the city is “disillusioned by President Trump’s lies regarding the border and our community.”
The resolution noted that the county’s violent crime rate dropped 62 percent from 1993 to 2007, and that a fence wasn’t installed until 2008.
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) is planning to headline a counter-rally at the same time as Trump’s on Monday night.