Trump vows tariffs over immigration. What the numbers say about border crossings, drugs and crime
President-elect Donald Trump is threatening tariffs on Mexico and Canada as he seeks to portray them as responsible for illegal immigration and drug smuggling
WASHINGTON — In a Monday evening announcement, President-elect Donald Trump railed against Mexico and Canada, accusing them of allowing thousands of people to enter the U.S.
Hitting a familiar theme from the campaign trail and his first term in office, Trump portrayed the country's borders as insecure and immigrants as contributing to crime and the fentanyl crisis. In an announcement that could have stark repercussions, he threatened to impose 25% tariffs on everything coming into the country from those two countries.
Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric has resonated with voters concerned about immigration and crime. Yet there's more to the story than Trump's short statement suggested.
A look at what the numbers and studies say about border crossings, fentanyl smuggling and whether there's a connection between immigration and crime:
The number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is a key metric watched intensely by both Republicans and Democrats.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, releases monthly statistics that track everything from drug seizures to cross-border trade. One of the metrics tracked is the number of Border Patrol arrests or encounters each month with people entering the country between the official border crossings — known as the ports of entry.
The vast majority of those arrests happen at the southern border.
Those numbers have actually been falling this year under the Biden administration. The Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests in October, which is about a four-year low.
It hasn't always been
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