Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke will travel to Mexico on Thursday to attend funeral services in Juárez for a victim of Saturday’s mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.
The former congressman, who used to represent the Texas city, will also meet with Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral Jurado and Ciudad Juárez Mayor Armando Cabada to reinforce “the binational relationship of El Paso and Juárez and the shared strength of this community,” according to his campaign.
{mosads}O’Rourke has stayed in his hometown of El Paso to offer support for the community and survivors of the shooting, saying he would skip the crucial Iowa State Fair, a key event for presidential candidates, and giving out his cellphone number to connect a Walmart employee who witnessed the shooting with mental health professionals.
“This is my cellphone. It goes directly to me. There have been a number of people who have reached out to me, counselors, therapists, who want to be helpful. If that additional help would be good for you, let me know, and then I’ll put you in touch,” O’Rourke told the witness. “If you can think of anything I can do for you or your family I want to do it, OK?”
O’Rourke has made headlines after hammering President Trump over his rhetoric, likening his talk of an “invasion” to that of an anti-immigrant manifesto the alleged shooter reportedly authored before the attack also warning of a “Hispanic invasion” and connecting the president’s language to other mass shootings.
“It will happen again because what happened in El Paso was not an isolated incident,” he said. “After the president warned of caravans, you had someone go into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh warning of caravans. You had the mosque in Victoria, Texas, burned to the ground on the day that Trump signed his executive order seeking to ban Muslim travel to the United States. There are very real consequences to his words.”