Donald Trump is still telling Americans that this country is experiencing an invasion by a massive number of undocumented immigrants crossing our Southern border. He uses that to justify his call for building a wall between the United States and Mexico -- and for sending thousands of soldiers to the border.
It is just not true -- and that is shown by the federal governments own numbers. The chart above uses figures from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. It shows that the number of arrests at the border of people trying to enter the country illegally was at a 46 year low in 2017.
Thanks to an increase in the number of Border Patrol officers, we now have more officers patrolling the border than ever before. If there was a massive invasion of undocumented immigrants crossing our Southern border, then one would expect that increase in border officers to be arresting more -- not less -- people trying to enter the United States.
The truth is that fewer immigrants are trying to cross our Southern border than before, and in fact, the net migration of undocumented immigrants is less than zero (meaning more of them are leaving the country than entering it).
Trump is lying! But his xenophobic fear mongering did convince many of his supporters that we are facing that massive invasion, so he must look like he's doing something to stop it -- even though it's not actually happening. And he's willing to spend billions building a wall and sending soldiers to the border just to avoid admitting he was wrong (which his narcissism will not allow him to do).
