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For much his presidency, Donald Trump desperately tried to convince Americans that immigrants were dangerous criminals, despite evidence to the contrary. In one especially creepy example, the Republican hosted a White House event with “the American victims of illegal immigration” — Trump labeled them “Angel Families” — at which the then-president thought it’d be a good idea to autograph poster-sized photos of deceased crime victims.
Several months later, at a related event, reporters tried to explain to Trump that data from his own administration proved that immigrants, on average, commit fewer crimes than those born in the United States. The Republican rejected the evidence and stuck to his alternative version of reality.
Hoping to return to office, Trump has reembraced the message, once again suggesting that the United States is dealing with a crisis of foreign criminals.
“The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime,” he said at a photo-op in Texas yesterday. “It’s a new form of vicious violation to our country. It’s migrant crime. We call it Biden migrant crime, but that’s a little bit long. So we’ll just leave it.”
The fact that Trump focused attention on messaging and public-relations branding reinforced an obvious truth — his priority was political, not substantive — but more important was the fact that the Republican didn’t appear to have any idea what he was talking about. NBC News reported:
[D]espite the former president’s campaign rhetoric, expert analysis and available data from major-city police departments show that despite several horrifying high-profile incidents, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States. ... An NBC News review of available 2024 crime data from the cities targeted by Texas’ “Operation Lone Star” — which buses or flies migrants from the border to major cities in the interior — shows overall crime levels dropping in those cities that have received the most migrants.
Or put another way, one of the core claims that Trump is running for president on is plainly at odds with the facts.
To be sure, this isn’t altogether surprising. We are, after all, talking about a Republican who’s said more than once that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing similar phrasing used by Adolf Hitler. It’s hardly unexpected to learn that Trump makes stuff up to advance his anti-immigration vision.
But it’s nevertheless true that as the former president bases much of his candidacy on the issue, Trump seems almost allergic to telling Americans the truth. He’s lied about the number of immigrants who’ve entered the country; he’s lied about migrants from South and Central America coming from “mental institutions” and jails; he’s lied about migrants getting registered to vote; and now he’s lying about “migrant crime.”
The question his followers probably ought to ask themselves is simple: If Trump’s immigration claims had merit, why can’t he simply tell the truth?