government shutdown Fact check: Trump’s speech on border ‘crisis’

President Donald Trump made several false or misleading statements about illegal immigration and border security in a nationally televised speech Tuesday evening.

The speech, intended to win political support for Trump's proposed multibillion-dollar wall along the southern border, came as a partial shutdown of the federal government over the matter stretched into its third week, with affected government employees expected to miss their first payday on Friday.


Here are some of the untruths and distortions in Trump's speech, most of which he's uttered before.

Is there a growing crisis?



"I am speaking to you because there is a growing and humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border. Every day Customs and Border Patrol agents encounter thousand of illegal immigrants trying to enter our country. We are out of space to hold them and we have no way to promptly return them back home to their country."

The notion that the number of illegal border crossings represent a "crisis" is not true. The number of people caught crossing at the border (the standard metric for determining the volume of illegal crossings generally) remains below that of annual levels under President Barack Obama and far below the high levels of the 1990s and early 2000s. Border Patrol arrested 396,579 people at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2018. The agency arrested an average of 400,751 people per year over the previous decade.

A "pipeline" for drugs?



"Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl.”

Misleading. Most fentanyl comes from China. Although most heroin enters the U.S. through the border with Mexico, most of that is intercepted at legal ports of entry, according to a 2018 report by the Drug Enforcement Administration. "A small percentage of all heroin seized by CBP along the land border was between Ports of Entry,” the report reads. A separate DEA report published three years earlier said Mexican cartels move “the bulk of their drugs” over the border using passenger vehicles or tractor trailers. “The drugs are typically secreted in hidden compartments when transported in passenger vehicles or comingled with legitimate goods when transported in tractor trailers,” the report reads.

"Thousands killed"



"Over the years, thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country."

That distorts the truth. Several studies show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. A June 2018 report by the libertarian Cato Institute found that immigrants who entered the country legally were roughly one-fifth as likely to be incarcerated as native-born Americans. Undocumented immigrants were half as likely to be incarcerated, according to the report, which drew on 2016 data from the American Community Survey. Do undocumented immigrants commit crimes? Of course — but at lower rates than their native-born counterparts.



Did the Democrats request steel?



"As part of an overall approach to border security, law enforcement professionals have requested $5.7 billion for a physical barrier. At the request of Democrats, it will be a steel barrier rather than a concrete wall."

Congressional Democrats did not ask that the wall be made of steel rather than concrete. When Trump first said he was making that concession, Democratic Party leaders said they didn't care. “There’s no requirement that this government be shut down while we deliberate the future of any barrier, whether it’s a fence or a wall,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Would Mexico pay?



"The wall would also be paid for indirectly by the great new trade deal we made with Mexico."

That’s not true. Trump vowed during his presidential campaign that Mexico would pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, but Mexico has refused to pay. The president now insists that Mexico will pay for the project through a renegotiated NAFTA agreement known as the USMCA. The deal still needs congressional approval and isn’t yet in effect, but even if it were in effect, any economic gains from the deal would go to private individuals and companies, not the U.S. Treasury.

Did Schumer ever support a border wall?



"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."

Misleading. Schumer and nearly two dozen other Democrats voted for the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which authorized the construction of roughly 700 miles of fence along the southwest border. But Schumer never voted for anything close to the scale of Trump's wall. Trump even belittled the structure Schumer voted for in 2016 as “a little wall” and “a nothing wall."

"One reason and one reason only"



"The federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only: because Democrats will not fund border security."

That’s not true. Democrats have refused Trump’s demand of $5.7 billion for a border wall, which has evolved into a demand for “steel slats,” But they have backed bills to reopen the government and proposed more than $1 billion for border security.