Fact-checking speech

[struggle4progress]

Feb. 15, 2019, 3:32 PM EST
By Jane C. Timm

... it's unlikely a border wall would have much effect on the illegal drug trade. Drugs primarily come into the U.S. through ports of entry and through the mail, not through unsecured portions of the southern border, according to the government's own data ...

... then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly — who went on to become White House chief of staff, until December 2018 — said in April 2017 that illegal drug traffic “mostly comes through the ports of entry” ...

Violent crime has been dropping in El Paso since its modern-day peak in 1993 and was at historic lows before a fence was authorized by Congress in 2006. Violent crime actually ticked up during the border fence's construction ...

Illegal border crossings have been dropping for years, and .. are still markedly lower than they were 20 years ago, Customs and Border Protection data shows.

... illegal immigration in the U.S. is .. driven by .. people who overstay their visas ...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-checking-trump-s-speech-declaring-national-emergency-border-wall-n972116

[struggle4progress]

1. Case for border emergency: fact check

By Cheyenne Haslett and Justin Fishel

... Trump: "I get my numbers from a lot of sources like Homeland Security primarily, and the numbers that I have from Homeland Security are a disaster."

The numbers that come out of his own Department of Homeland Security, instead of supporting his claim of an "invasion," show that illegal border crossings are at historic lows.

According to Customs and Border Protection data, illegal migration is down dramatically over the last two decades.

For example, in 2001 there were 1,643,679 apprehensions at the border, compared with 396,579 in 2018 -- a more than 75 percent drop ...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-case-national-emergency-border-fact-check/story?id=61102718

[struggle4progress]

2. White House seeks to clarify remarks on emergency

BY JORDAN FABIAN - 02/15/19 03:03 PM EST

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday sought to clarify President Trump’s statement that he “didn’t have to” declare a national emergency at the border, but did so to speed up construction of his long-promised wall.

Asked on Fox News how the White House will deal with the possible legal repercussions of Trump’s statement, Sanders said “the biggest thing is he shouldn’t have to do this.”

“Congress should have stepped up and done their jobs and done everything necessary to fully and safely secure the border,” she added. “The president could have waited and he could have drug this out” ...

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/430264-white-house-seeks-to-clarify-trump-remarks-on-emergency

[struggle4progress]

3. Rationale for emergency based on false or misleading claims

By Linda Qiu
Feb. 15, 2019

... Data from Customs and Border Protection shows that 80 percent to 90 percent of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl is seized at ports of entry (marijuana is the exception). The Drug Enforcement Administration noted that a “small percentage of all heroin” is seized at areas between ports of entry ...

About 80 percent of human trafficking victims passed through official ports of entry, according to a decade’s worth of data collected by the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative. The Polaris Project, a group that works to prevent human trafficking in the United States, said in a statement that out of nearly 50,000 cases it has handled, “the vast majority of victims” arrive through ports of entry ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/fact-checking-trump-emergency-border.html

[struggle4progress]

4. Fact-checking speech

By Holmes Lybrand, Priscilla Alvarez, Geneva Sands, Lydia DePillis, Gregory Wallace and Ryan Browne, CNN
Updated 3:35 PM ET, Fri February 15, 2019

... Trump: "President Obama put on more debt on this country than every president in the history of our country combined" ...

From fiscal year 2009 through fiscal year 2017, the national debt -- which includes both the money the US government owes to others as well as the money it owes to itself -- grew from $11.9 trillion to $20.2 trillion. That's an addition of about $8.3 trillion, which is less than the debt outstanding when President Barack Obama took office, when President George W. Bush had already begun spending billions of dollars in order to cushion a deepening recession.

Adjusting for inflation, the amount Obama added is even smaller. As a share of gross domestic product, it is far smaller, especially compared to the enormous spike during World War II.

Trump was responding to a question about his own contribution to the national debt, which this week topped $22 trillion for the first time ...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/politics/fact-check-trump-national-emergency-immigration-speech/index.html

[guillaumeb]

5. In any contest between fact and fear,

fear will generally win.

[struggle4progress]

6. We can win. But it takes some time and effort

[guillaumeb]

7. I agree,

but for so many low information voters, fear is their primary motivator. And Trump is good at appealing to race based fear.

[struggle4progress]

8. Fact-checking announcement

By Glenn Kessler and Meg Kelly
February 15 at 5:33 PM

... Previously presidents acted with authority inherent in the Constitution, but Congress intended to formalize the process, including terminating standing emergencies. The law was intended to clarify presidential power and give Congress the option to thwart a presidential declaration, not to give “the power” to presidents ...

When Trump was challenged by a reporter on his facts and figures, he insisted he got them from the Department of Homeland Security. But he actually got them from his TV set. On Jan. 27, he tweeted that the cost of illegal immigration so far this year was $18,959,495,168. We traced that number to a report on the right-leaning One America News Network ...

... fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, can be easily ordered online, even directly from China ...

During the campaign, Trump more than 200 times promised Mexico would pay for the wall, which the administration says would cost at least $18 billion. He also signed a “Contract with the American Voter” that pledged he would obtain payment for the “full cost” of the wall with Mexico. Now he says the minor reworking of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will earn enough money for pay for the wall. This betrays a misunderstanding of economics. Countries do not “lose” money on trade deficits, so there is no money to earn; the size of a trade deficit or surplus can be determined by other factors besides trade. Congress must still appropriate the money, and the new trade agreement has not been ratified ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/15/fact-checking-trumps-announcement-national-emergency/?utm_term=.4024697031d6