Factchecking Trump's Immigration Address

In a national address, President Donald Trump called on Congress to provide $5.7 billion for a border wall to address what he called a “crisis” on the border. The president made some false and misleading claims, and provided some facts without context:

Despite the president’s claims of a “crisis,” the number of apprehensions at the Southwest border remains historically low.

Trump made the misleading claim that Customs and Border Protection agents “encounter thousands of illegal immigrants” every day trying to enter the U.S. The average number of apprehensions at the border is less than 2,000 a day.

Trump suggested that 20,000 children were illegally brought into the country last month by “vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs,” but there’s no evidence of that in the available statistics.

The president falsely claimed “the border wall would very quickly pay for itself” by stopping the flow of illegal drugs. But the majority of illicit drugs is smuggled through legal ports of entry in cars and tractor-trailers, and would not be stopped by a wall.

Trump continued to claim Mexico would pay for the border wall “indirectly” through a new international trade agreement. Economic experts told us the new trade pact won’t generate enough additional federal revenues to pay for a border wall.


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