(from https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/01/08/facts-donald-trumps-border-wall-address-nation-immigration-shutdown-column/2503981002/)
►Illegal border crossings are down. Significantly.
In 2000, 1.6 million people were apprehended trying to cross the southern border into the United States. In 2001, 1.3 million were apprehended. In 2018? Less than 400,000.
►The counties along the southern border are among the safest in the United States.
According to data from the Wilson Center, as summarized by The Washington Post, “The crime rates in U.S. border counties are lower than the average for similarly sized inland counties, with two exceptions out of 23 total.”
►Most undocumented immigrants don’t “sneak” across the border.
The majority of immigrants in the USA without authorization first entered the country legally, and then overstayed their visas. Even the anti-immigration Center for Migration Studies said in a 2017 report that crossing the border is not the way “the large majority of persons now becoming undocumented.”
►The White House is lying about terrorists crossing the southern border.
In an interview on Fox News this weekend, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders' careful wording suggests she knew she was more than bending the truth. Fox News anchor Chris Wallace fact-checked Sanders: “Do you know where those 4,000 people come, where they are captured? Airports.”
►Migrant caravans aren’t “sneaking” across the border, either.
It’s important to distinguish between illegal border crossings and migrants lawfully presenting themselves at southern ports of entry in order to apply for asylum.
►Drugs entering the USA across the southern border are most often hidden in legal shipments.
While 90 percent of heroin enters through the southern border, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency, “illicit drugs are smuggled into the United States in concealed compartments within passenger vehicles or commingled with legitimate goods on tractor trailers. . . A wall wouldn’t stop most heroin from entering the country.
►Conservative political figures and think tanks think Trump’s wall is pointless.
(The) reason Trump couldn’t get funding for his wall during the past two years of his presidency when his own party completely controlled both houses of Congress: They didn’t want it.
►There are already 654 miles of border fencing.
The U.S.-Mexico border is 1,933 miles long. Of that, 34 percent already has a wall or a fence — in particular, parts along the areas of the border that are most easily accessed by people traveling by car or on foot.
►Americans do not support Trump’s wall.
“The people of our country want it,” Trump said recently. No, they do not. A mid-December poll found that 54 percent of respondents opposed Trump’s wall.
Facts of Life
©1994 Raymond M. Jozwiak
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