El Paso, Texas, Mayor Dee Margo said he’s “already getting emails and phone calls” about welcoming U.S. President Donald Trump to town as the city grapples with a mass shooting at a Walmart store that left 22 dead and many others injured.
“From my perspective, he is not welcome here. He should not come here while we are in mourning,” El Paso congresswoman Rep. Veronica Escobar, the first Latina to represent her district, told MSNBC on Monday.
“I would encourage the president’s staff members to have him do a little self-reflection. I would encourage them to show him his own words and his actions at the rallies.”
WATCH: Trump to visit El Paso on Wednesday
Escobar previously took on Trump for his immigration policy and his denigration of Mexicans as rapists. In June 2018, she and Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke led protests against Trump’s family separation policy.
She later said she would not attend Trump’s visit to the city on Wednesday unless she had “the opportunity to talk directly to him.”
She said she would tell the president: “I need you to acknowledge that you’ve dehumanized people who are good and equal to all of us. And you need to rehumanize everyone.”
O’Rourke, who is from El Paso, echoed the disapproval.
“This president, who helped create the hatred that made Saturday’s tragedy possible, should not come to El Paso,” he wrote on Twitter.
“We do not need more division. We need to heal. He has no place here.”
He joined a number of Democrats who on Monday accused the president of fostering an environment of hate that led to the shootings. They angrily renewed their calls for his defeat next year.
“He’s been racist from Day 1 — before Day 1, when he was questioning whether Barack Obama was born in the United States,” he said.
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Speaking to media on Monday, O’Rourke prescribed a number of solutions.
One is for the Senate to pass universal background checks, as the House has already done.
The second is to end the sale of assault weapons, “which as you know were designed for one sole purpose, to kill people as effectively, as efficiently and in as great a number as possible.”
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O’Rourke said politicians should also pass red flag laws that can help the government stop people “who can be a danger to themselves or someone else before it’s too late.”
Finally, “we need to stop the racism and the intolerance and the fear mongering that we’re seeing throughout this country and seeing it in the highest positions of power and the public trust.
“If ever we were the example for the rest of the country, it is at this moment, in the face of this tragedy which will not define us. What will define us is the way we overcome it.”
There are indications Trump will also visit Dayton, Ohio, where a mass shooting that killed nine people took place less than 24 hours after the El Paso massacre.
The White House hasn’t announced the trip, but the Federal Aviation Administration has advised pilots of a presidential visit that day to both El Paso and Dayton.
In response to the weekend mass shootings, Trump declared the acts barbaric crimes “against all humanity” and called for unity to respond to an epidemic of gun violence.
He blamed mental illness and video games but made no mention of more limits on the firearms that can be sold in the U.S.
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Trump said he wanted legislation providing “strong background checks” for gun users, though he has reneged on previous promises along that line after mass attacks.
“We vow to act with urgent resolve,” Trump said as the death toll from the shootings in El Paso and Dayton reached 31 late Monday.
WATCH: White House says it’s ‘ridiculous’ to blame El Paso shooting on Trump
At the White House, Trump declared: “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.”
He said he had directed the FBI to examine steps to identify and address domestic terrorism.
“These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America,” he said.
WATCH: Trump delivers statement on mass shootings in El Paso, Dayton
Police have zeroed in on a racist screed posted online before the Texas shooting to try to link it to the suspect.
The anti-immigrant writing that police were working to link to the alleged perpetrator, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, mirrored some of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.
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Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley said it is “ridiculous” to blame the shooting on Trump.
“It’s not the politician’s fault when someone acts out their evil intention,” Gidley said.
“You have to blame the people here who pulled the trigger,” he continued. “Those are the ones who are evil, those are the ones who are sick and mentally ill, and those are the ones that have to be dealt with.”
— With files from Global News
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