Protests planned for Trump’s Austin visit

Protesters are gearing up for President Donald Trump’s visit to Austin on Wednesday, with plans to gather at the likely site of his Apple Inc. manufacturing tour.

The anti-Trump group Indivisible Austin invited protesters to meet near the Flextronics Americas facility, where Apple’s Mac Pro is manufactured.

The White House confirmed Saturday that Trump, Apple CEO Tim Cook and senior administration officials would visit an Apple Inc. manufacturing plant in Austin to hear about how its products are assembled in Austin.

The Mac Pro is manufactured at a Flextronics Americas factory in Northwest Austin.

By Monday afternoon, roughly 55 people had RSVP’d to gather outside the facility, according to Indivisible Austin treasurer Tony Weber. Texas Sierra Club, Progress Texas and other chapters of the Indivisible group also will join the protest.

Weber said the groups will focus on the U.S. House impeachment inquiry.

U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is scheduled to give public testimony on Wednesday.

“We are concerned with the attacks on not just democratic norms, but the heart and soul of our democracy,” Weber said of Trump and the impeachment inquiry.

Sondland is a figure in the campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. Sondland revised private testimony earlier this month to say that he told a Ukrainian official that military aid was “likely” delayed until the country committed to investigating Biden.

“He’s going to be here visiting while ambassador (Gordon Sondland) is testifying publicly and probably having to revise his testimony once more about the truth about who was involved with what,” Weber said. “That is deeply concerning.”

The group might place protesters along the motorcade route, Weber said, but it’s not clear which roads will be closed.

Austin is Apple’s largest hub outside of its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters. The tech company has more than 6,000 employees at its main Austin campus, and last year announced plans for a new, nearby 133-acre corporate campus that initially will employ up to 5,000 people.

Trump has visited Austin one other time as president and has visited Texas a dozen times since taking office. Travis County, a Democratic stronghold where Trump received just 27.1% of the vote, isn’t exactly friendly territory for the president.

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, roughly 150 to 200 people protested near the Texas Department of Public Safety operations center in North Austin, where Trump received an update on Harvey response efforts.

Protesters urged the president to not rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gives protection from deportation to thousands of young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

The city was a favorite destination of former President Barack Obama. He also was greeted with protests.

Obama infamously skipped the line at Franklin Barbecue when he came to Austin in 2014.

In 2016, Obama gave a keynote address at South by Southwest and ate at Torchy’s Tacos for lunch.

While visiting Austin for a fundraising event in September 2012, Republicans and tea party activists gathered at the Capitol for a “Hands Off Texas” rally to protest the Obama administration’s policies.