AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday told President Donald Trump that the border fence in El Paso helped drastically reduce the city's crime rate and shows why a wall along the nation's southern border would be effective.

Paxton did not offer statistics to support his claim or specify which iteration of El Paso's border fence he was referring to, although he did reference border barriers erected under former President George W. Bush.

"El Paso used to have one of the highest crime rates in America," Paxton said. "After that fence went up and separated Juarez, which still has an extremely high crime rate, the crime rates in El Paso now are some of the lowest in the country. So we know it works."

We looked at the claim. Here's what we found:

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Construction of a fence in El Paso

Some form of barrier has existed between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez for decades, whether it was a chain link fence or the more substantial barrier that stands along the border today.

Paxton's office did not return a request for comment looking to clarify which iteration of the fence his remarks referred to, but given his reference to Bush, he was likely pointing to fencing constructed under the Secure Fence Act from 2006.

The proposal, signed into law by Bush in October of 2006, kicked off years of sparring over construction of the fence in El Paso and legal challenges to the effort.

An El Paso Times article from the front page of the paper the same month the law was signed captured attitudes on the ground.

"If you believe elected officials, business leaders and community activists, the proposed border fence to limit illegal immigration is either a cure-all or a calamity," the article reads

Construction started on the fencing in the El Paso sector in 2008 and had finished by mid-2009.

What do crime statistics show?

In his remarks, Paxton said El Paso had a high crime rate before the fence was constructed and that the rate of crime dropped substantially after it was completed.

That was not the case.

Using Uniform Crime Reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the rate of violent crime in El Paso can be calculated by combining data reported by the El Paso County Sheriff's Office and the El Paso Police Department.

Looking broadly at the last 30 years, the rate of violent crime reached its peak in 1993, when more than 6,500 violent crimes were recorded.

Between 1993 and 2006, the number of violent crimes fell by more than 34 percent and less than 2,700 violent crimes were reported.

The border fence was authorized by Bush in 2006, but construction did not start until 2008.

From 2006 to 2011 — two years before the fence was built to two years after — the violent crime rate in El Paso increased by 17 percent.

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Same claim made by the White House

In January 2018, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted “Ask El Paso, Texas (now one of America’s safest cities) across the border from Juarez, Mexico (one of the world’s most dangerous) if a wall works."

She linked to an opinion piece published in the New York Post that was titled “This town is proof that Trump’s wall can work.” The piece, written by a conservative political commentator based in Washington, D.C., argued that El Paso’s border fence is the reason for the city's low crime rate and decreased illegal border crossings.

At the time, local leaders rejected the article's findings and argued that it did not mention the police-community relations and cooperation between law enforcement agencies that contributed to the city's safety before border fencing was put in place.

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Former El Paso Police Chief Russ Leach told the El Paso Times in 1997 that people are quick to credit law enforcement as crime rates ebb and flow, but the residents of El Paso are actually behind the city's safety.

"It's not the police, and it's not the conditions in the community: It's the people,” he said at the time.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said there is no evidence to support Paxton's claims.

"Mr. Paxton, like most people who purport to know anything about the border, is dead wrong," Escobar said in a text message. "El Paso has long (and consistently) been one of the safest communities in American — even before the wall was built."

"It's this kind of willful ignorance that is so damaging to border communities and our country," she said.

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Madlin Mekelburg is a reporter with the USA Today Network Austin Bureau; she may be reached at 512-479-6606; mmekelburg@elpasotimes.com; @madlinbmek on Twitter.