noise, you don't have the facts or the numbers. Get to it.
Trump's Tweets On 'Caravans' Crossing The Border, Annotated
Trump also tweeted that the border is "getting more dangerous." Assaults on Customs and Border Protection agents jumped nearly 50 percent last year. But the rate of illegal border crossings into ...
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/02/598781060/trumps-tweets-on-caravans-crossing-the-border-annotated
NPR reporters who follow immigration and the debate in Congress fact-checked six of his tweets:
Claim 1: "Caravans" of migrants are crossing the border
Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2018
The president offers no source for his claim about "caravans" of immigrants coming to the U.S. But he is likely reacting to a story broadcast by Fox News on Sunday morning about a caravan of migrants crossing Mexico, reportedly heading for the border. The caravan, organized by the group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, numbers more than 1,000 people, most of them from Honduras, as BuzzFeed reported last week. So far, Mexican authorities haven't moved to block the migrants. It's not clear how many of the migrants actually intend to enter the U.S. or seek asylum here.
Trump also tweeted that the border is "getting more dangerous." Assaults on Customs and Border Protection agents jumped nearly 50 percent last year. But the rate of illegal border crossings into the U.S. dropped to its lowest level in decades. Arrests last year hit a 46-year low, though they have ticked back up slightly in the first months of 2018.
The president has vowed repeatedly to end "catch and release." That's how critics describe the policy that allows many migrants to go free until their requests for asylum can be heard by an immigration judge, a process that often takes years because of court backlogs.
Despite the president's repeated calls, "catch and release" is proving difficult to dismantle, in part because of laws and settlements that constrain how long immigration authorities can hold migrants, especially children.
-- Joel Rose, National Desk correspondent
Claim 2: "Mexico is doing very little"
Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2018
Mexico's foreign minister fired off his own tweet after Trump's, insisting that Mexico and the U.S. work together on migration every day and "the facts clearly reflect this." Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray Caso also added, in reference to reports that Trump's tweets were in response to a Fox News story, that inaccurate news reports should not serve to question binational cooperation.
Mexico has recently detained large groups of migrants coming through the country. Just last Friday, authorities discovered 136 migrants from Central America in the back of a sweltering hot truck in the southern state of Veracruz. In March, another group of 103 Central Americans was rescued from a truck in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. According to a report by Reuters, official figures show that more than 800 Central American migrants have been discovered in safe houses or in trucks in Mexico in the first three months of this year.
-- Carrie Kahn, Mexico City correspondent
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