By ASTRID GALVAN, MORGAN LEE and PAUL J. WEBER

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The Texas border city jolted by a weekend massacre at a Walmart absorbed more grief Monday as the death toll climbed to 22 and prepared for a visit from President Donald Trump over anger from El Paso residents and local Democratic leaders who say he isn’t welcome and should stay away.

El Paso Mayor Dee Margo announced at a news conference that Trump planned to visit Wednesday, and in an early sign of emotions already running high, immediately defended the decision to welcome the president.

Trump coming to El Paso in wake of the tragedy is unnerving some residents and politicians who said his divisive words are partly to blame. But Margo, a Republican, deflected criticism.

“I want to clarify for the political spin that this is the office of the mayor of El Paso in an official capacity welcoming the office of the president of the United States,” Margo said.

Acknowledging the backlash in the community, Margo added: “I’m already getting the emails and the phone calls.”

In scripted remarks from the White House, Trump urged unity while blaming mental illness and video games. He made no mention of limiting gun sales.

Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of El Paso made clear that the president was not welcome in her hometown as it mourned. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who was an El Paso congressman for six years, also said Trump should stay away.

Other residents in the largely Latino city of 700,000 said Monday that Trump’s rhetoric is difficult for them to stomach.

“It’s offensive just because most of us here are Hispanic” said Isel Velasco, 25. “It’s not like he’s going to help or do anything about it.”

Authorities are scrutinizing a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly before police say Patrick Crusius, 21, opened fire on Saturday. Language in the document mirrors some of the words used by Trump, who on Monday denounced white supremacy, which he has been reluctant to criticize.

The White House hasn’t announced Trump’s trip but the Federal Aviation Administration has advised pilots of a presidential visit that day to El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, where a second weekend shooting left nine people dead.

Authorities at the news conference in El Paso also revealed details about the suspect’s whereabouts before the shooting — some of the first to come out regarding his movements. Police Chief Greg Allen said Crusius drove more than 10 hours from the Dallas area before arriving in El Paso. He said Crusius got lost in a neighborhood before ending up at Walmart “because, we understand, he was hungry.” Allen didn’t elaborate.

Crusius is from the affluent Dallas suburb of Allen. The police chief said the gun used was legally purchased near the suspect’s hometown. The chief did not say what kind of weapon it was but described the ammunition as 7.62-caliber, which is used in high-powered rifles.

Crusius, who is being held without bond, said in his application for a public defender that he has no income or assets and has been unemployed for five months.

The El Paso shooting is one of the deadliest in U.S. history, and the death toll rose Monday as doctors announced that two more of the wounded had died. Dr. Stephen Flaherty of Del Sol Medical Center described the wounds as “devastating and major” and said that one patient who died had major abdominal injuries affecting the liver, kidneys and intestines.

The hospital did not release the names or ages of the two patients who died, but hospital officials described one as an elderly woman.

Mexican officials have said eight Mexican nationals were among the dead. Tens of thousands of Mexicans legally cross the border each day to work and shop in El Paso.

Allen said 15 people remain hospitalized, including two still in critical condition.

El Paso police publicly identified the 22 killed for the first time Monday, but there were some discrepancies in the spelling of names and nationalities between that list and Mexico’s.

Mexico’s foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, said Monday the Mexican government considers the mass shooting to be an act of terrorism against Mexican citizens on U.S. soil. He said Mexico will participate in the investigation and trial of the man suspected of carrying out the attack.

El Paso has long prided itself on being one of the safest cities in the nation. When years of drug cartel-driven violence in neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, left tens of thousands of people dead, El Paso still had one of the nation’s lowest crime rates. Police reported 23 murders last year and 20 the year before that, making Saturday’s rampage a year’s worth of bloodshed.

Vanessa Tavarez, 36, from the rural West Texas town of Seagraves, traveled to El Paso on Saturday to renew her Mexican husband’s residency and work documents. They arrived with their 5-year-old son at a motel only to find police helicopters circling overhead.

Shopping at the Walmart where the shooting occurred was on the family’s to-do list before the attack. She said fear nagged at them after the shooting as they shopped elsewhere for supplies and went to a movie.

“I don’t think anybody would be in favor of him (Trump) being here, first of all,” Tavarez said. “Because a lot of people probably think it’s because of him that everything happened. … I just think people will be angry.”

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Weber reported from Austin. Associated Press writers Cedar Attanasio in El Paso and Jake Bleiberg in Dallas contributed to this report.

By CEDAR ATTANASIO, PAUL J. WEBER and MORGAN LEE

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Two more victims of the mass shooting at a crowded Walmart in El Paso, Texas, died Monday at a hospital, raising the death toll for the attack to 22.

The Del Sol Medical Center did not release the names or ages of the patients who died, but hospital officials described one as an elderly woman.

One patient who died had major abdominal wounds affecting the liver, kidneys and intestines. That patient also received a “massive blood transfusion,” Dr. Stephen Flaherty said at a news conference.

Another patient remained in critical condition at the hospital, and five others were in stable condition, two days after the Saturday attack in which more than two dozen people were wounded. Victims were also treated at other El Paso hospitals.

Speaking at the White House on Monday, President Donald Trump condemned the two attacks that killed 31 people and wounded dozens of others. He called for bipartisan cooperation to respond to an epidemic of gun violence, but he offered scant details on concrete steps that could be taken.

“We vow to act with urgent resolve,” Trump said.

Mexican officials have said six Mexican nationals were among the dead in the border city where tens of thousands of Mexicans legally cross each day to work and shop.

Investigators focused on whether the El Paso attack was a hate crime after the emergence of a racist, anti-immigrant screed that was posted online shortly beforehand.

Authorities searched for any links between the suspect and the material in the document that was posted online, including the writer’s expression of concern that an influx of Hispanics into the United States will replace aging white voters, potentially turning Texas blue in elections and swinging the White House to Democrats.

The writer denied he was a white supremacist, but the document says “race mixing” is destroying the nation and recommends dividing the United States into territorial enclaves determined by race. The first sentence of the four-page document expresses support for the man accused of killing 51 people at two New Zealand mosques in March after posting his own screed with a conspiracy theory about nonwhite migrants replacing whites.

Including the two latest attacks, 127 people had been killed in the 2019 mass shootings.

Since 2006, 11 mass shootings — not including Saturday’s — have been committed by men who are 21 or younger.

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Weber reported from Austin. Balsamo reported from Orlando, Florida. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Amy Guthrie in Mexico City contributed to this report.

By JOSH BOAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers are thought to have sustained a steady pace of hiring in July, a reassuring sign for an economy that’s endured a series of ups and downs.

Economists have forecast that the government will report that 163,000 jobs were added in July, according to data provider FactSet. This would be roughly in line with the average monthly gain of 172,000 so far this year, though below the 224,000 jobs added in June.

The unemployment rate is believed to have remained at 3.7{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} for a second straight month, close to a 50-year low.

The economy’s overall growth, along with consumer spending, has been solid. But business investment has been declining, home sales have weakened and manufacturers have shown signs of struggling.

Despite the economy’s resilience, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in a decade to try to counter the impact of President Donald Trump’s trade wars, stubbornly low inflation and global weakness. One day later, Trump announced plans to tax an additional $300 billion of Chinese imports beginning in September.

In the meantime, with the decade-long economic expansion now the longest on record, some employers appear to be running out of workers to hire. The average monthly job gain has dropped by 63,000 compared with the first six months of 2018. The bulk of the decline has come from the construction, manufacturing and mining and logging sectors, according to Martha Gimbel, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab.

Though it is growing consistently, the economy appears to be sliding into a slower phase. The gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services produced in the United States — grew at a decent if unspectacular 2.1{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} annual rate in the April-June quarter, down from a 3.1{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} pace in the January-March period.

Consumer spending increased at a 4.3{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} annual rate and helped propel much of the growth. But business capital investment declined for the first time in three years, a likely sign that Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs against China and other countries has slowed corporations’ expansion plans.

Pay gains also appear to have stalled, even though lower unemployment has historically boosted worker pay. Wages and benefits have risen 2.7{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} over the past 12 months, down slightly from the 2.9{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} gain for last year, the Labor Department said.

Home sales have fallen as high prices have kept many people out despite the benefits of low mortgage rates and job gains. Sales of existing homes have tumbled 2.2{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} over the past 12 months, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Factories have also been coping with a slowdown. In part, that’s because the global economy has weakened and the president’s tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods — and threats to add more — have disrupted supply chains. The Fed said this month that manufacturing output has improved just 0.4{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} from a year ago after having declined over the past six months.

There are signs, though, that consumers are optimistic. The Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence last month reached its best reading since November. A higher percentage of Americans anticipate pay raises in the next six months.

Indeed, spending at restaurants and bars has increased 4.2{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} year-to-date, according to government reports. And while traditional store retailers have faced hardships, online stores have prospered: Non-store retailers have enjoyed a 10.6{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} jump in sales.