Luis Carrasco: Trump's irresponsible rhetoric is hurting border communities

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Luis Carrasco: Trump's irresponsible rhetoric is hurting border communities

Luis Carrasco Arizona Daily Star Feb 10, 2019

https://tucson.com/opinion/local/luis-carrasco-trump-s-irresponsible-rhetoric-is-hurting-border-communities/article_0b457212-326f-5e9a-a9f5-0fd252617814.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1

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But as I was being lulled to sleep by President Trump’s greatest hits of faux bipartisanship, fuzzy economic figures and rampaging immigrant caravans, I perked up at the mention of El Paso, the city I was born in and the border region I lived in for 29 years.

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Sure enough, fact checking after the speech debunked the president’s words. As CNN pointed out, crime had been on a steady decrease for almost 20 years prior to modern fencing going up in 2008. I thought that was a little unfair, since there had been fencing in El Paso for many years before, but even if you go back to the 1990s, when some fencing was put in, there is still no correlation between border barriers and a decrease in violent crime.

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Perception took a while to change in the community — and that was without someone purposefully spreading misinformation. How long will it take for that perception to ebb nationally once Trump is out of office? For companies to overlook there are now more troops on Mexico’s doorstep than in Syria? For people to forget the sight of row upon row of razor wire strung along the Nogales fence?

Border residents are actively being harmed by President Trump’s irresponsible rhetoric. His obsession with a half-baked campaign promise is doing real damage to our image, casting us as a lawless land where crime is rampant and no one is safe.

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