MCALLEN, TEXAS - The marquee outside the historic Cine El Rey theater was updated to highlight something that was left out of President Donald Trump's address to the nation Tuesday, said manager Shooter Roberts.

Passersby now see: "Welcome to McAllen, 7th safest city in America."

Although the ranking reflects a 2015 list published by Smart Asset, the border city of about 140,000 made Niche's list of 33 safest cities in America last year, Roberts pointed out.

"That's pretty badass for a border city," he said. "We put it up because we want people to understand this and talk about it amongst themselves.

McAllen residents are on the defense after President Donald Trump took to prime time television to contend that a "humanitarian and security crisis" on the U.S.-Mexico border can only be fixed with a multibillion-dollar wall.

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Sister Norma Pimentel said she's not familiar with the "crisis" that Trump mentioned during the prime-time address.

Although hundreds of immigrants seek meals and refuge every day at three McAllen respite centers she oversees, it does not compare to a 2014 surge of Central Americans seeking asylum that prompted her to open the first respite center then, she said.

Pimentel, of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, also disputes the notion that her hometown isn't safe.

"When we hear that the border is not safe, that the border is out of control and there’s a crisis of criminals coming in and we must protect ourselves from all these criminals here to kill us, it’s not true," she said.

"If you come here and you see these families, these children you can realize they’re not criminals. They’re people, they’re innocent victims and they need help."

Trump used both talking points to justify a weeks-long partial government shutdown that began when his request for $5.7 billion was denied by Democrats in Congress. He used Tuesday's address to the nation to make his case that there is a crisis on the border in which lax security has led to drugs and crime spilling into the U.S from other countries.

Some who live and work in the Rio Grande Valley disagree with the notion that there is a crisis. Others disagree with how effective a wall would be in improving border security.

The number of Central Americans surrendering themselves at the U.S.-Mexico border to seek asylum declined since 2014, when a surge that made international headlines cemented a reputation for the Rio Grande Valley that’s simply untrue, said McAllen Mayor Jim Darling.

The Valley has since been battling an impression that it's being flooded with undocumented immigrants and that it’s unsafe. There is no crisis at the border, Darling said.

“To me, the real crisis is that the government has not gotten together to get the real issues resolved.”

Darling is part of a cohort of government leaders along the Texas border with Mexico who equate border security with proper staffing at U.S. ports of entry instead of seeing the building of a multibillion-dollar wall.

On Tuesday, they offered to lead Trump on a tour of Hidalgo County’s busiest ports of entry during his visit Thursday to the Rio Grande Valley.

This is where “officers and their facilities are stretched thin, face an overwhelming opponent in the international drug cartels and deserve all the support you may be able to offer,” a collective voice of five border mayors and a county judge wrote in a letter to Trump.

Government leaders from Laredo, Hidalgo, McAllen, Pharr and Mission sent the letter ahead of the president's planned Thursday visit to McAllen..

The letter welcomes Trump to one of the fastest-growing counties in Texas. It also cites Customs and Border Protection statistics that indicate that 90 percent of drug seizures, including cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl are being smuggled into the U.S. via ports of entry.

More:Full Trump speech on government shutdown, border security

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Activists in the Rio Grande Valley gathered Wednesday to make protest signs in preparation for Trump's afternoon arrival in McAllen. One protest led by La Union del Pueblo Entero, or LUPE, is slated for 11 a.m. Thursday near the intersection of South 10th Street and Wichita Avenue.

Amanda Elise Sala, one of the organizers of the preparation event hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Church in San Juan, said that to her, border security is about building relationships with people on the other side of the border.

"If you build a relationship with anybody on the other side of any border ... it’s easier to be able to keep things safer," she said. "Because we’re friends. These are our sister cities."

On Wednesday, Trump abruptly left a meeting with congressional leaders about the shutdown and continued to threaten to declare a national emergency at the border amidst Democrats' refusal to give in to his demands for border wall funding.

"I have the absolute right to do (a) national emergency if I want. … My threshold will be if I can’t make a deal with people that are unreasonable.”

A roundtable discussion on the current border security debate that will include border-city stakeholders is also slated for Thursday afternoon, according to a news release from the office of Sen. John Cornyn.

The discussion, which is unlikely to include Trump, will include local mayors, county judges, and civic leaders "to hear their perspective on how best to secure the border while encouraging legitimate trade and travel," according to the release.

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