Mayor Margo as quoted during his campaign for mayor (paraphrased):
“I am first an El Pasoan then a Republican.”
Dee “hold the line on taxes” Margo failed his first test to defend and represent El Paso when Sarah Huckabee Sanders was spreading misinformation about why El Paso is a safe city based on an ignorant article in the New York Post.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted that our city was one of the safest in America by virtue of our border wall…that “freedom fence” to keep out the “riffraff” and “illegals” as mayor Margo has referred to it (that is some fine talk coming from the mayor of 83% Latino El Paso).
That brought forth a predictable firestorm of pushback by local and state leaders, letting her and America know that the wall has nothing to do with El Paso’s safety record, rather it’s our people and community who make us safe.
Congressman Beto O’Rourke, Former El Paso Police Chief Russ Leach, State Reps Lina Ortega and Cesar Blanco, and State Sen. José Rodríguez are just a few leaders who publicly took Huckabee Sanders to task over her statements based on the ignorant New York Post article about El Paso and the wall.
Where was mayor Margo?!
He went mute and MIA. Rather than dealing with the Huckabee-Sanders statement, he chose to remain silent as any GOP drone toeing the party line would do. Inaction equals cowardice in my opinion.
Our fearful leader Margo once again finds himself in a position to weigh in on the humanitarian crisis that has El Paso on the national and international news radar. He has the opportunity as an El Pasoan first, and a Republican second, to condemn the unChristian, anti-family-values and frankly sickening Zero Tolerance policy that president Trump has enacted here on our border that is separating young children from their asylum-seeking parents.
These children are being farmed out to various holding cells and converted warehouses across America with one in Tornillo currently warehousing around 400 boys, many as young as five and traumatically separated from their parents. This particular tent city is said to eventually hold up to 4,000 boys.
Even his personal friend, the respected and well-loved First Lady Laura Bush has publicly stated:
“Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”
If that isn't a message directed to mayor Margo and possibly her friend Adair (Margo's wife), I don't know what is.
In my opinion and based on previous inaction, Mayor Margo will NOT forcefully condemn the actions of his Republican party. He will likely take the cowardly politicians’ route and throw out a quick and watered down statement saying he doesn’t agree with it, leaving it at that, or worse he will go MIA, duck and cover and avoid the situation altogether.
He has proven himself to be highly averse to challenge, criticism and instead takes positions that clearly don’t reflect the majority of El Pasoans.
Like the current situation our border region is grappling with.
Many local public servants and local, state and national politicians to include a handful of gutsy and principled Republicans have come out strongly condemning our current Trump-led administrations’ unfortunate and un-American tactics to abuse Latinos and asylum seekers.
I can virtually guarantee you that mayor Margo will be nowhere to be found regarding this situation that has people the world over wondering about El Paso.
Handing out jackets to poor children in a city that rarely has any sort of a winter (Margo’s Operation Noel) means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING if Dee Margo won’t stand up for the “least of these” children being torn from their families and shipped to holding cells unknown.
Time to locate your soul Margo.
It’s out there somewhere.
.
