Increase in drugs and crime

Rating

Trump has tried to frame the "crisis" on the border in easy to understand terms. Much of that messaging has focused on the idea that lax security has led to drugs and crime "pouring" over the border. Trump bases the claim on the idea that members of the MS-13 gang have committed violent crimes in some parts of the United States. But there is missing context in Trump's characterizations. To begin with, the vast majority of illicit drugs captured at the border come through legal ports of entry, according to Trump's own U.S. Customs and Border Protection. For the first 11 months of the 2018 fiscal year, 90 percent of the heroin intercepted at the border and 88 percent of the cocaine, was captured at a legal port of entry rather than between those ports. There is a similar caveat to Trump's claim on crime. The president and Republicans frequently point to roughly 17,000 people trying to enter the country who had been convicted of crimes in the United States or abroad in the first 11 months of 2018. But more than 60 percent of those people came through legal points of entry, including airports, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

Reviewed by USA Today ↗ · January 8, 2019