WASHINGTON (AP) — In a Monday night announcement, President-elect Donald Trump railed towards Mexico and Canada, accusing them of permitting hundreds of individuals to enter the U.S.
Hitting a well-recognized theme from the marketing campaign path and his first time period in workplace, Trump portrayed the nation’s borders as insecure and immigrants as contributing to crime and the fentanyl disaster. In an announcement that might have stark repercussions, he threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all the things coming into the nation from these two international locations.
Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric has resonated with voters involved about immigration and crime. But there’s extra to the story than Trump’s brief assertion prompt.
A take a look at what the numbers and research say about border crossings, fentanyl smuggling and whether or not there’s a connection between immigration and crime:
Border crossings
The variety of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is a key metric watched intensely by each Republicans and Democrats.
U.S. Customs and Border Safety, an arm of the Division of Homeland Safety, releases month-to-month statistics that observe all the things from drug seizures to cross-border commerce. One of many metrics tracked is the variety of Border Patrol arrests or encounters every month with folks coming into the nation between the official border crossings — often called the ports of entry.
The overwhelming majority of these arrests occur on the southern border.
These numbers have really been falling this yr below the Biden administration. The Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests in October, which is a few four-year low.
It hasn’t all the time been like that. The Biden administration struggled to carry down the rising variety of migrants coming to the southern border. Rather less than a yr in the past, in December 2023, the Border Patrol made a few quarter of 1,000,000 arrests alongside the southern border — an all-time excessive. Cross-border commerce was broken as border brokers have been reassigned to assist course of migrants and practice visitors was briefly shut down.
Since then, the numbers of individuals encountered on the southern border have dropped and stayed down by way of a mixture of stricter enforcement on the Mexican facet and asylum restrictions introduced earlier this yr by the Biden administration.
Republicans put a caveat on these numbers.
They’ve often accused the Biden administration of utilizing an app known as CBP One to let tons of of hundreds of individuals into the nation who in any other case wouldn’t be allowed in. They’ve described this system the place 1,450 folks a day can schedule an appointment to return into the U.S. as primarily a solution to hold the border encounter numbers artificially low.
On the northern border, the numbers are a lot smaller. Border Patrol made 23,721 arrests between October 2023 and September 2024, in contrast with 10,021 the earlier 12 months.
Trump additionally struggled to get a deal with on unlawful border crossings. Arrests topped 850,000 in 2019, almost triple the quantity two years earlier, although nonetheless far beneath the tally of greater than 2 million for 2 totally different years below Biden.
Drug smuggling
Trump and plenty of Republicans have usually portrayed the U.S.’s southern border as broad open to drug smuggling. They’ve additionally linked immigrants to drug smuggling and accused Mexico of doing little to cease it.
A lot of America’s fentanyl is smuggled from Mexico.
The fentanyl scourge started properly earlier than Biden took workplace. Border seizures have jumped sharply below Biden, which can partly mirror improved detection. About 27,000 kilos (12,247 kilograms) of fentanyl was seized by U.S. authorities within the 2023 authorities finances yr, in contrast with 2,545 kilos (1,154 kilograms) in 2019, when Trump was president.
Cooperation between the Mexican and U.S. governments on combating drug smuggling undoubtedly suffered below President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who left workplace on the finish of September.
Earlier than López Obrador took workplace in December 2018, the U.S. labored carefully with Mexico’s army to take down drug capos.
However López Obrador, a nationalist and folksy populist, railed towards the violence set off by the drug warfare waged by his predecessors and the People. He proposed addressing the foundation societal causes of violence present in poverty and a scarcity of alternative for younger folks, in what he known as “hugs, not bullets.”
For years, López Obrador denied that Mexico made fentanyl, regardless of proof on the contrary, together with statements from his personal safety officers. He blamed U.S. society, the place he mentioned households push kids out of dwelling too early, for cultivating addicts.
It’s solely two months into the time period of President Claudia Sheinbaum however there are indicators that she seems extra keen to let the army go after the cartels than her predecessor.
However whereas a lot of the fentanyl comes from Mexico, statistics present that it’s People who’re doing the smuggling throughout the border. In line with the U.S. Sentencing Fee, 86.4% of individuals sentenced for fentanyl trafficking crimes in a 12-month interval ending September 2023 have been Americans.
Crime and immigration
Trump additionally has argued that the inflow of immigrants is inflicting a criminal offense surge within the U.S., though statistics present violent crime is on the best way down.
Texas is the one state that tracks crime by immigration standing. A research revealed by the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, primarily based on Texas Division of Public Security information from 2012 to 2016, discovered folks within the U.S. illegally had “substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses.”
Whereas FBI statistics don’t separate out crimes by the immigration standing of the assailant, there isn’t a proof of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants, both alongside the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities seeing the best inflow of migrants, like New York. Research have discovered that individuals residing within the U.S. illegally are much less doubtless than native-born People to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes.
Some crime is inevitable given the massive inhabitants of immigrants. There have been an estimated 11 million folks within the nation illegally in January 2022, in line with the newest estimate by U.S. Homeland Safety Division. In 2022, the Census Bureau estimated the foreign-born inhabitants at 46.2 million, or almost 14% of the whole, with most states seeing double-digit share will increase within the final dozen years.
Republicans have highlighted high-profile crimes by immigrants such because the February killing of 22-year-old Laken Riley in Georgia and argued that any crime dedicated by somebody within the nation illegally is a criminal offense that shouldn’t have occurred.
A Venezuelan man who entered the nation illegally was convicted and sentenced to life in jail this month in Riley’s killing.