Fact check: Trump claims that U.S. has 'weakest and worst' immigration laws in world

Ronald J. Hansen | The Republic | azcentral.com

Show Caption Hide Caption Trump signs executive order to stop family separation at border President Donald Trump says he "didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated."

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order ending his controversial family-separation policy involving immigrants and refugees. Ahead of that, the president vented about immigration laws in a dubious tweet.

The claim

"The Fake News is not mentioning the safety and security of our Country when talking about illegal immigration. Our immigration laws are the weakest and worst anywhere in the world, and the Dems will do anything not to change them & to obstruct-want open borders which means crime!"

The Fake News is not mentioning the safety and security of our Country when talking about illegal immigration. Our immigration laws are the weakest and worst anywhere in the world, and the Dems will do anything not to change them & to obstruct-want open borders which means crime! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 20, 2018

What we’re reviewing

The president packs a lot of things in this tweet, but we're looking at his claim that U.S. immigration laws are the "weakest and worst anywhere in the world."

Analysis

This claim largely rests on a subjective evaluation of a truly global topic. What, for example, are weak immigration laws? Are they laws that make immigration especially hard? The president's tweet suggests he is mixing border security with immigration laws and using crime as at least one indicator of effectiveness.

Rather than try to objectively assess what he said, here are a few facts that suggest Trump's statement is incorrect, even by his own measure.

First, the U.S. spends about $20 billion annually on border and immigration enforcement That is easily the largest expense of its kind among industrialized nations.

For context, that annual expenditure is more than the entire national economy of 24 island nations combined, according to data from the World Bank. Clearly, the U.S. pours considerable resources into controlling immigration and its borders.

Next, consider that the U.S., a nation of about 325 million, removes more than 200,000 people per year, according to figures from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That's about as much as the European Union, which includes 28 nations with about 500 million residents.

Third, about 14 percent of the U.S. population are migrants, which ranks about 50th worldwide, based on figures from the World Bank. About 21 percent of the population in Canada, for example, comes from immigrants. Germany had a slightly higher share than the United States.

This means that whatever you think of U.S. immigration laws, it's hard to make the case that it has been especially overrun by foreigners.

Lastly, there are multiple studies that have found illegal immigrants commit crimes at lower levels than the U.S. population as a whole.

Taken as a whole, the U.S. spends more on border and immigration enforcement than any country, expels as many migrants as any known country and doesn't have an outsize immigrant population. Those who do come here aren't any more prone to criminal behavior than U.S. citizens.

Conclusion

If the president has more definitive information laying out the basis of his tweet, he hasn't shared it publicly. Based on the information that is publicly available, his assertions are false.

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