9 things you should know before Trump starts spewing lies

[Guno צְבִי]

Trump has been hyping fears about violence stemming from the United States/Mexico border since the early moments of his presidential campaign. In June 2015, for instance, he painted an ugly picture of Mexican migrants crossing the border. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” Trump said. He has kept up his fear mongering about the border, but ramped it up in recent weeks as justification for his sudden decision to shut down the federal government because neither Democrats nor Republicans in his own party will approve funding for Trump’s border wall. He has tweeted about “our VERY DANGEROUS SOUTHERN BORDER” and even threatened to declare a state of emergency to build the wall that he insists is not only needed but is also needed now more than ever.

Trump is simply, on these and related points, incorrect. Here are the key facts:

►Illegal border crossings are down. Significantly.

In 2000, 1.6 million people were apprehended trying to cross the southern border into the United States. In 2001, 1.3 million were apprehended. In 2018? Less than 400,000. That’s not just a decline. It’s a significant decline......

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opin...s-in-tuesday-address-to-the-nation/ar-BBRXxUA

 

[Guno צְבִי]

►Most undocumented immigrants don’t “sneak” across the border.

The majority of immigrants in the USA without authorization first entered the country legally, and then overstayed their visas. The Center for Migration Studies said in a 2017 report that crossing the border is not the way “the large majority of persons now becoming undocumented.” It reported that two-thirds of undocumented immigrants entered the U.S. legally and then simply overstayed their visas. If you legitimately are concerned about the issue of undocumented immigrants, as opposed to just exacerbating and exploiting fear mongering for political gain, then this is where you would focus — not the border.

 

[Guno צְבִי]

The White House is lying about terrorists crossing the southern border.

In an interview on Fox News this weekend, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted that “nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally, and we know that our most vulnerable point of entry is at our southern border.” Sanders' careful wording suggests she knew she was more than bending the truth. Fox News anchor Chris Wallace fact-checked Sanders: “Do you know where those 4,000 people come, where they are captured? Airports.”

“The state department says there hasn’t been any terrorists found coming across the southern border,” Wallace stated. But Sanders kept pressing the lie, because Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda relies on fact-less fear mongering.

 

[Guno צְבִי]

Republican Rep. Will Hurd, from the border state of Texas, said in 2017, “I’ve made it clear time and time again that building a physical wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border.” The conservative Cato Institute has called Trump’s wall idea “impractical, expensive and ineffective.” One might suspect that more Republicans would speak out against Trump’s stupid wall idea if they weren’t afraid of alienating the right-wing GOP base.

 

[Guno צְבִי]

Americans do not support Trump’s wall.

“The people of our country want it,” Trump said recently. No, they do not. A mid-December poll found that 54 percent of respondents opposed Trump’s wall. That number even crept up slightly by late December. And more than two out of three Americans don’t think the wall should be a political priority. It’s also worth noting that most Americans blame Trump for the government shutdown that he initiated by trying to hold government funding hostage to get his stupid wall.

 

[Nordberg]

Pew research found that people who live within 300 miles of the wall are least likely to support it. If it were the problem Trump says it is, then they would be terrorized and moving away. As usual, Trump is lying.