Trump Arrives In McAllen Texas At First Stop In Wall Crusade, But Mayor Says They Don't Need One.
Thursday January 10th. It was an impressive show, no doubt intended to wow The Mayor and residents of sleepy McAllen Texas (population 150,000). At 10:30am Mayor Jim Darlng and a small reception commitee assembled on the tarmac of a local airstrip to watch 2 large Sikorsky VH3D "Sea King" helicopters in USMC livery airlift Donald Trump and DHS Director Kirsten Neilsen into town. Their purpose: a sort of modern era whistle stop tour of Texas, to sell Trumps $5.7b border wall to...er...well, towns on the border.
Embarassingly though, both Trump and Neilsen soon found themselves dealing with a genuine Mission Impossible, as Mayor Jim and members of the Texas Border Patrol concluded an all day roundtable discussion with Trump pressing his case for a wall by telling him that in their opinion investing in one is the wrong choice.
Julie Hillrichs, spokeswoman for the Texas Border Coalition, a group of border mayors (including Darling), county judges and border communities focused on issues that impact border quality of life for more than 2.5 million people summed up the Texas BP position.
“We have never supported the wall,” Hillrichs said “The Border Coalition has consistently over the years stated we believe the wall is a wasted investment.”
Oops.
Things went rapidly downhill from there for Team Trump with The CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) offering a presentation of enlarged photos of tunnels that were dug to get guns and drugs across the border, leaving Trump at a complete loss to be able to explain how a border wall would help stop the flow of drugs through tunnels dug from underneath it, and via legal ports of entry.
This being effectivly the death knell not only of his tour, but of the sudden glaringly apparent speculative value in blowing $5.7b on a wall that can simply be tunnelled under, the only thing Trump the dealmaker could think of to say was "When I’m talking about a wall, I don’t just mean a wall."
Oh.
Hildrich pretty much shut down the issue by explaining that The Texas Coalition believes the real way to increase security at the border would not be a wall, but increased investment in the legal ports of entry that already exist in their area.
Epilogue
During his Oval Office address to the nation Trump characterized the situation at the border as a “growing humanitarian and security crisis," but Border Town McAllen Texas Mayor Jim Darling doesn't agree.
“We don’t feel a crisis in our city,” Darling says. “That’s one of the problems with just saying there’s a crisis on the border: It affects border towns. We’re a vibrant area. McAllen is the safest city in the state of Texas, and we’re right on the border, so that kind of rhetoric resonates and sells newspapers, but it hurts our area.”
“I want to emphasize all the discussions about danger and crisis … We live day to day in a very safe community and all our people feel that way. We had no murders last year in a city of 150,000,” Darling adds.
Back to the helicopter guys...this joint's a bust...