The Hispanic, just a mile from Mexico

“Most people would call me Mexican,” says Jesus Flores, “and I don’t have a problem with being called Mexican. But if someone asks me, I say I’m a US citizen with Mexican heritage. I’m proud to be American.”

The 63-year-old was born in Laredo, Texas, where he now runs a business repairing sewing machines. His father was Mexican - as is his wife - and half of his customers come from Nuevo Laredo, just a mile across the border. Even so, he does not recoil from Mr Trump’s judgement that “when Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best… They bring crime. They’re rapists.”

Mr Flores “wouldn’t repeat his words” but shares some of the fears Mr Trump has stoked. As a child, he would cross the Rio Grande, which forms a natural border in this corner of Texas, every day to visit his grandmother, but now ventures across the bridge only a few times a year.

“It got harder over the years because of all the violence in Mexico,” he says. “There’s gunfights, there are drug cartels. If you cross the river, you’re risking very much - you’re risking life, if you don’t know where you are.”