Hospitalized victims of El Paso shooting refuse to meet with Trump: 'He just came to do a circus'

Some hospitalized victims of last weekend's mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, are refusing to meet with President Trump, according to the Washington Post.

The president, who visited El Paso on Wednesday, made his first stop at the University Medical Center (UMC), where many of the injured were taken after the Saturday mass shooting at a Walmart shopping center that left 22 people dead.

However, all eight of the victims still being treated at the hospital refused to speak with Trump. Leticia Mariscal, whose daughter was shot in the leg during the attack and whose husband remains in critical condition at UMC, said her family disapproves of the president due to his anti-Hispanic rhetoric.

"The whole family said if [Trump] wants to go into the room — no. We don't want him in the patient's room," Mariscal told El Paso's KFOX-TV. "Because of the way he talked against Mexicans — against Hispanics. So we don't want to talk to a person that is against Mexicans."

Saul Chavez, a relative of Jorge Calvillo, who died in the shooting, told the news station he wished Trump had not come to visit.

"I wish he wouldn't have needed to come. I think he just came to do a circus," Chavez said. "He was the one who brewed up all of this hatred against Mexicans — I guess he forgot what he said."

Trump did visit with two injured victims while at UMC, both of whom had been previously discharged but returned to the hospital to see the president. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Trump was "received very warmly by not just victims and their families, but by the many members of medical staff who lined the hallways to meet them," according to the Washington Post.

The visit came just hours after Trump traveled to Dayton, Ohio, the site of last weekend's second mass shooting. That incident, in which a gunman opened fire outside a bar early Sunday morning, left nine dead — including the shooter's sister — and dozens injured.

Trump tweeted his own views on both trips, commenting that "love, respect & enthusiasm were there for all to see."

Not every El Paso victim was avoiding Trump in particular, according to the hospital. Ryan Mielke, a spokesperson for UMC, said many victims are forgoing visitors altogether as they continue to recover.

"This is a very sensitive time in their lives. Some of them said they didn’t want to meet with the president, some of them didn’t want any visitors," Mielke told The Washington Post.

Trump was also met by protestors during his El Paso visit, some of whom booed the president as he was driven to the hospital.

"The president should stay away," protestor Margie Ugarte told the Independent. "It's not just that he's anti-immigrant, he's anti-anyone who is not the same."