Much of the political rhetoric in recent weeks has focused on illegal immigration. We thought it would be helpful to take a step back and look at some measures of illegal immigration in a larger context.
Illegal Immigration Statistics
Issues: Illegal immigration
Is Illegal Immigration Linked to More or Less Crime?
President Donald Trump said it’s “not true” that immigrants in the U.S. illegally are “safer than the people that live in the country,” providing several crime statistics he claimed represented the “toll of illegal immigration.” Sen. Bernie Sanders made the opposite claim, saying: “I understand that the crime rate among undocumented people is actually lower than the general population.”
Video: Nielsen’s Policy Distortion
This video from CNN’s Jake Tapper and FactCheck.org explains how Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen distorted the facts when she tweeted that the Trump administration does “not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”
Sessions vs. Sessions on Separating Families
Attorney General Jeff Sessions now says that the administration “never really intended” to separate families as part of its zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration. But Sessions had previously acknowledged that that’s what would happen under this policy.
More Bogus Border Claims
During the ongoing family-separation controversy, President Donald Trump and others have made false or misleading statements on several immigration issues.
Did the Obama Administration Separate Families?
In defending its “zero tolerance” border policy that has caused the separation of families, the Trump administration has argued that the Obama and Bush administrations did this too. That’s misleading. Experts say there were some separations under previous administrations, but no blanket policy to prosecute parents and, therefore, separate them from their children.
Nielsen’s Rhetoric on Family Separations
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has resorted to a rhetorical sleight of hand in recent days to defend the Trump administration’s policy of separating families that illegally cross the border.
Q&A on Border Detention of Children
The controversy surrounding family separations at the U.S. Southern border has prompted outrage, opinions and finger-pointing. It has also raised a number of questions, including from our readers. We answer those questions here.
Video: Trump on ‘Breaking Up’ Families
CNN’s Jake Tapper and FactCheck.org review President Trump’s claim that immigration officials “have to break up families” caught crossing the border illegally because of “bad laws that the Democrats gave us.”
Trump’s Misleading L.A. Story
President Donald Trump claimed that federal immigration officials asked the Los Angeles Police Department in January to detain an “illegal immigrant,” but the police “let him go, and he killed somebody.” That’s not how it happened.