Fact-Checking 5 of Trump’s Claims in Border Speech

The Daily Signal ^ | January 09, 2019 | Jarrett Stepman, Rachel del Guidice, and Fred Lucas

[Yosemitest]

This is an EXCERPT.

SECURITYANALYSIS Fact-Checking 5 of Trump’s Claims in Border Speech

...
1. “All Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal migration. It strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages.
Among those hardest hit are African-Americans and Hispanic Americans.”

According to U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Peter Kirsanow, black Americans are disproportionately affected by illegal immigration.

“Black males are more likely to experience competition from illegal immigrants,” Kirsanow said in a 2017 interview with The Daily Signal.

“What happens is you eliminate the rungs on the ladder because a sizable number of black men don’t have access to entry-level jobs,” Kirsanow said.
“It is not just the competition and the unemployment of blacks. It also depresses the wage levels.”

Also, a Civil Rights Commission study in 2010 found that illegal immigration had a high impact on black men in particular.
The report noted:

Illegal immigration to the United States in recent decades has tended to depress both wages and employment rates for low-skilled American citizens, a disproportionate number of whom are black men.
Expert economic opinions concerning the negative effects range from modest to significant.
Those panelists that found modest effects overall nonetheless found significant effects in industry sectors such as meatpacking and construction.

George J. Borjas, a professor of economics and social policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, wrote for Politico in 2016 on the issue, saying:

Both low- and high-skilled natives are affected by the influx of immigrants.
But because a disproportionate percentage of immigrants have few skills, it is low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and Hispanics, who have suffered most from this wage dip.
The monetary loss is sizable.
The typical high school dropout earns about $25,000 annually.
According to census data, immigrants admitted in the past two decades lacking a high school diploma have increased the size of the low-skilled workforce by roughly 25 percent.
As a result, the earnings of this particularly vulnerable group dropped by between $800 and $1,500 each year.

2. “Sen. Chuck Schumer – who you will be hearing from later tonight – has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past, along with many other Democrats.
They changed their mind only after I was elected president.”

As Senate minority leader, Schumer, D-N.Y., is now the chamber’s top Democrat.
In 2006, Schumer – along with other high-profile Democrats – voted for the Secure Fence Act.

The proposal specifically calls for a physical barrier along more than 700 miles of the southern border that had no fencing.
The language of the Secure Fence Act says it:

Amends the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to direct the [Homeland Security] Secretary to provide at least two layers of reinforced fencing, installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors extending:
(1) from ten miles west of the Tecate, California, port of entry to ten miles east of the Tecate, California, port of entry;
(2) from ten miles west of the Calexico, California, port of entry to five miles east of the Douglas, Arizona, port of entry
(requiring installation of an interlocking surveillance camera system by May 30, 2007, and fence completion by May 30, 2008);
(3) from five miles west of the Columbus, New Mexico, port of entry to ten miles east of El Paso, Texas;
(4) from five miles northwest of the Del Rio, Texas, port of entry to five miles southeast of the Eagle Pass, Texas, port of entry;
and (5) 15 miles northwest of the Laredo, Texas, port of entry to the Brownsville, Texas, port of entry (requiring fence completion from 15 miles northwest of the Laredo, Texas, port of entry to 15 southeast of the Laredo, Texas, port of entry by December 31. 2008.

So Schumer has voted for a physical barrier, although he technically could argue that he supported a “fence” rather than a “wall.”

Other Senate Democrats to support the proposal included Barack Obama of Illinois, Hillary Clinton of New York, and Joe Biden of Delaware.
Among current senators, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., voted for the proposal.

Some Democrats were indeed consistently opposed to a physical barrier.
For example, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., now the Democratic whip, voted against the 2006 bill.

But in the House, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., voted no on the Secure Fence Act, as did the No. 2 Democrat, Steny Hoyer of Maryland

3. “Every week 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2017 “more than 15,000 people died of drug overdoses involving heroin in the United States.”
That’s about 288 deaths per week.

“Mexico remains the primary source of heroin available in the United States, according to all available sources of intelligence, including law enforcement investigations and scientific data,” states a 2018 report from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The report suggests that ports of entry, not unattended border stretches, are where most of the heroin is being smuggled.

“A small percentage of all heroin seized by CBP [Customs and Border Protection] along the land border was between ports of entry,” the report says, adding:

Mexican [Transnational Criminal Organizations] control the movement of heroin that enters the United States across the [southwest border], until it reaches its destination in cities all over the United States.
The majority of the flow is through [privately owned vehicles] entering the United States at legal ports of entry, followed by tractor-trailers, where the heroin is co-mingled with legal goods. …
Body carriers represent a smaller percentage of heroin movement across the [southwest border] and they typically smuggle amounts ranging from three to six pounds taped to their torso, or in shoes and backpacks.

4. “One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico.”

A 2017 report from Doctors Without Borders surveying crossings into Mexico from the areas of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, which it calls the Northern Triangle of Central America, says that “nearly one-third of the women surveyed had been sexually abused during their journey.”

In 2014, Fusion reported:

Increasingly, Central American women crossing through Mexico to the United States become victims of sexual assault.
Some women choose to sell their bodies for safe passage, but others aren’t given a choice.
Migrant shelter directors told Fusion 80 percent of Central American women who make the journey to the U.S. are raped in Mexico.

5. “In the last two years, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records,
including those charged or convicted of 100,000 assaults,
30,000 sex crimes,
and 4,000 violent killings.”

Trump’s arrest numbers are correct, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement numbers compiled in 2017 and 2018.

The number of illegal immigrants arrested by ICE is the highest since 2014, according to a December report by the agency.

The ICE report says 158,581 illegal immigrants were arrested in fiscal year 2018, and 138,117 of those had a criminal history.
This is an 11 percent increase over 2017, when 143,470 illegal immigrants were arrested, 127,992 of them with a criminal record.

“The number of people with pending charges arrested by ICE was 48 percent higher in 2018 than in 2017, while arrests of those with criminal convictions dropped slightly,” Reuters reported.

According to The Washington Post, the report “shows that 145,262 of those deported were convicted criminals and that 22,796 had criminal charges pending against them.”

A total of 5,872 known or suspected gang members were arrested, according to the report, as well as 42 thought to be terrorists.

ICE reports break down the charges and convictions following the arrests.

According to the 2017 report, 48,454 illegal immigrants were charged with or convicted of assault.
The 2018 report shows similar numbers, with 50,753 illegal immigrants charged with or convicted of assault.

As for homicides, 1,886 illegal immigrants were charged with or convicted of the crime in 2017, and 2,028 last year.

To reach the 30,000 sex crimes number, Trump appeared to draw from three categories:
sex offenses not involving assault or commercialized sex (6,664 charges or convictions in 2017 and 6,888 last year);
sexual assault (5,118 in 2017 and 5,350 last year;
and commercialized sexual offenses (1,572 in 2017 and 1,739 last year).

[Yosemitest]

Those pesky facts will drive the LAWLESS DemocRATS crazy.
But since when have DemocRATS cared about FACTS ?

[Yosemitest]

Check out ILLEGALS from All Over the World Travel Through the Darien Gap to Enter the U.S.:

Ahmed Hassan staggered through dense Panamanian jungle, crazy with thirst, his rubber sandals sliding in the mud, fearing he would die thousands of miles from his homeland in Somalia.

“I told my family I would go to the U.S., that was the plan,” said the 26-year-old truck driver, who said he fled late last year when al-Shabaab militants took his village.
He flew to Brazil and made a cross-continental bus trip to Colombia.

In March came his biggest test: crossing the Darien Gap that connects South America with Panama and Mr. Hassan’s ultimate goal, the U.S.
“There was no water.
There were snakes,” he said in a small holding center in Metetí, north of the jungle, gashes and bites covering his legs under his traditional sarong.
“I thought I might die in that jungle.”

Migrants go to extremes for new beginnings.
Honduran families put children on northbound trains.
Hundreds of Africans recently drowned braving the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat.
People cross the deadly Sonoran Desert to get from Mexico to Arizona.

The untamed Darien Gap has become a new route for travelers from as near as Cuba and as far as Nepal.
The surge reflects the difficulty of entering the U.S. by traditional paths like arriving on a visa and overstaying, said Marc Rosenblum, a deputy director at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.

“These people are willing to take this risky and complicated route,” he said, “and they are lining up to take it.”

U.S. justice and immigration officials say they are working to combat human smuggling on such routes.
“We will continue using all of our investigative authorities to identify and dismantle these transnational criminal organizations,” said Barbara Gonzalez, Senior Adviser to Latin America at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The circuitous Panama route has become more attractive, say migration experts, thanks to the easing of visa and asylum requirements in some South American countries and an unwillingness by some governments on the route to carry out mass deportations. ...

[Tench_Coxe]

“I think that there a lot of people more concerned with being precisely, factually and semantically correct than about being morally right.” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[1Old Pro]

I was going to say that the media and the Dems were united (as usual) in their frontrunning “charge” that Trump would spout lies and misdirection. I would think that they could at least point out the top 3-4 lies that he stated to back themselves up and show their credibility - yet silence.

When Trump says the media is corrupt, that’s an understatement. When he says they are the enemies of America, that’s being nice.

[treetopsandroofs]

All the Rats KNOW Trump lies, so no examples are ever necessary.

What disappoints me is that so many of “us” believe Rats will eventually wake up and understand anything they don’t already know to be true without question.

All they know is hate, and to double down on their bigotry and intolerance like their god the Fraud taught them for 8 years.

[GOPJ]

Until we can export all illegals they should be sent to Washington and the National parks used to replace government porn watchers...oops I mean government employees.

They work cheaper and anyone who objects is a racist...

Great way to clear out the swamp...

[dhs12345]

Maybe it will take another 9/11 type of attack that is a result of poor border security. Of course, Democrats will claim that the two are unrelated.

[jazminerose]

Facts? Facts are suddenly going to become of some relevance to libs?

[HighSierra5]

Illegal immigrants= intruders, interlopers.

[treetopsandroofs]

The TrutherBees and Rats would suddenly understand the term “false flag”, and say that Republicans were responsible to further their agenda

[treetopsandroofs]

“Facts? Facts are suddenly going to become of some relevance to libs?”

Only when the facts disagree with what the Hussein Heads know to be true without question.

[Leep]

The fact is ..lefties are time proven liars and frauds.

[ExTxMarine]

All the Rats KNOW Trump lies, so no examples are ever necessary.

Kind of like how all the media, Liberal talking heads and many Liberal politicians KNOW that Trump is a racist, but only point to "well known dog whistle" words and rhetoric, so no real examples are necessary!

[Yosemitest]

Con artist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can't even be morally right !
Is it morally correct ... TO LIE ?

[NEMDF]

Thank you for sharing this. I was curious as to how the facts would shake out, knowing he HAD to be accurate, so that those in MSM who call him a liar, will be lying.

[NEMDF]

From my limited checking the feedback on several MSM stations, it seemed that they were mainly united (previously agreed to?) in saying that POTUS didn’t say anything “new”. The “same tired rhetoric”...

[shanover]

We (collectively beyond the Trump era) better wake up and do something before it's too late. We know what the left wants and will do anything to get it. The Republic is fracturing.

I woke up this morning in the socialist state sh*thole of NJ to see that the push is on for Drivers Licenses for ILLEGALS. Everybody with a brain is against sh*t like this but will do nothing or still vote the same a-holes in.

[dhs12345]

That is when we play the videos of Pelosi, Schumer, and the other Democrats ignoring border security.

We have them on video. We just need to be willing to play mean.

This is what bothers me the most about politicians. They make grand statements and even lie and then do nothing and yet they are never held responsible when something bad happens as a result of their inaction.

Their decisions have indirect and direct impact on Americans. They need to be held to account for their mistakes especially when they fight against common sense irrationally because they hate Trump.

[1Old Pro]

it seemed that they were mainly united (previously agreed to?) in saying that POTUS didn’t say anything “new”.

Yep, that's true, I guess that's their plan when they say he will say multiple lies an he says zero - so their only attack will be that it's "nothing new" and it's his fault gov't employees are going without food, bread or water because of his demands for HIS wall and we don't need a wall.

[PapaBear3625]

From GAO report from another FR thread

https://www.gao.gov/assets/320/316959.pdf

The number of criminal aliens in federal prisons in fiscal year 2010 was about 55,000, and the number of SCAAP criminal alien incarcerations in state prison systems and local jails was about 296,000 in fiscal year 2009 (the most recent data available), and the majority were from Mexico . The number of criminal aliens in federal prisons increased about 7 percent from about 51,000 in fiscal year 2005 while the number of SCAAP criminal alien incarcerations in state prison systems and local jails increased about 35 percent from about 220,000 in fiscal year 2003. The time period covered by these data vary because they reflect updates since GAO last reported on these issues in 2005. Specifically, in 2005, GAO reported that the percentage of criminal aliens in federal prisons was about 27 percent of the total inmate population from 2001 through 2004.

Based on our random sample, GAO estimates that the criminal aliens had an average of 7 arrests, 65 percent were arrested at least once for an immigration offense, and about 50 percent were arrested at least once for a drug offense. Immigration, drugs, and traffic violations accounted for about 50 percent of arrest offenses. About 90 percent of the criminal aliens sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2009 (the most recently available data ) were convicted of immigration and drug-related offenses. About 40 percent of individuals convicted as a result of DOJ terrorism -related investigations were aliens.