In Texas border town, skepticism ahead of Trump visit to push wall

But for Marianna Trevino-Wright, the center’s director, it is the barrier itself - not an influx of criminals - that poses the greatest risk to the sanctuary, given that current plans call for the wall to bisect its property.

“Why on earth would me and my husband live here, and work here, and rear six children here, if it wasn’t safe?” she said.

In McAllen, the county’s largest city, several officials and residents interviewed by Reuters expressed skepticism over Trump’s claim that a wall is required to end what he described as a “crisis” in an Oval Office address on Tuesday.

Seby Haddad, a commercial lender at a regional bank, said he watched this binational community grow for decades because of immigration, not in spite of it.

He rejected the notion that a border wall would help stem the flow of illicit drugs, noting that most narcotics are smuggled in vehicles at official checkpoints, according to government data.

“It doesn’t fix any problem,” said Haddad, 38. “It’s an archaic solution.”

Trump has partially shut down the federal government over his demand for a wall, a proposal that Democrats have rejected as immoral and ineffective. The prospects for a resolution remained dim on Wednesday, after congressional leaders met with Trump at the White House but made no progress.

In his televised remarks on Tuesday, Trump asserted that illegal immigrants and drugs were pouring across the Mexico border, putting American lives at risk. But government figures show that illegal crossings have dropped significantly since the 1990s and early 2000s.

McAllen and the surrounding area is far from Trump Country – the three congressmen from the region are Democrats, as are all of the state senators and representatives.