Donald Trump on Thursday was to make his first campaign trip to the U.S. border with Mexico, where he was expected to vow to secure it using the same fiery rhetoric that has enraged Latino immigrants and advocates nationwide since he began his bid for the Republican nomination for president.
In advance of his visit, Trump's staff provided GPS coordinates to what they called "the actual border," half an hour's drive south of this city of about 250,000. Across the Rio Grande is its sister city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, which has been plagued in recent years by drug cartel and gang violence.
Laredo is a bustling industrial hub west of the Rio Grande Valley, which was inundated last summer with immigrant families, mostly from Central America.
Polls show Trump leading the crowded field of 16 Republican presidential candidates, in part due to his caustic condemnations of border security, starting with his first incendiary campaign speech, in which he called Mexican migrants rapists and drug-runners.
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Trump had been scheduled to travel to the border to meet with representatives from the local Border Patrol union, who had invited him. But his campaign released a statement Thursday saying the union, the National Border Patrol Council Local 2455, had been pressured by superiors to withdraw from the event.
"They were totally silenced directly from superiors in Washington who do not want people to know how bad it is on the border — every bit as bad as Mr. Trump has been saying," the statement said, adding that Trump decided to visit anyway.
"It can only be assumed that there are things the politicians in Washington do not want Americans to see or discuss. It shows that we are not even safe in our own country. It is time to face these hard truths and Make America Great Again!" the statement said, ending with Trump’s campaign slogan.