WASHINGTON — Virtual President-elect Donald Trump attacked Mexico and Canada on Monday, accusing them of allowing thousands of people to enter the United States.
Returning to one of the main themes of his election campaign and his first term, Trump said that the country’s borders are insecure and affirmed that immigrants contribute to crime and the fentanyl crisis that plagues the United States. During an announcement that could have serious repercussions, he threatened to impose 25% tariffs on everything entering the country from those two nations.
Trump’s anti-immigration speech has resonated with voters concerned about the immigration situation and crime rates in the country. However, the Republican’s brief statement does not paint a complete picture.
Here’s a look at what the numbers and studies say about border crossings, fentanyl trafficking, and whether there’s a connection between immigration and crime:
border crossingsThe number of migrants crossing the border from Mexico into the United States is a key metric that is closely followed by both Republicans and Democrats.
The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), part of the Department of Homeland Security, publishes monthly statistics covering everything from drug seizures to cross-border trade. One of the metrics is the number of arrests or encounters the Border Patrol has each month with people entering the country outside of official border crossings.
The vast majority of those arrests occur on the southern border.
These numbers have been declining this year during President Joe Biden’s administration. The Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests in October, near the lowest level in four years.
It hasn’t always been like this. The Biden administration struggled to reduce the growing number of migrants arriving at the southern border. A little less than a year ago, in December 2023, the Border Patrol made about a quarter of a million apprehensions along the southern border, an all-time high. Cross-border trade was affected as border agents were reassigned to help process migrants, and rail traffic was temporarily suspended.
Since then, the number of encounters at the southern border has decreased and remained at a low level thanks in part to increased restrictions imposed in Mexico, and in part to measures limiting asylum claims that the Biden administration imposed on early this year.
Republicans have reservations about those numbers.
They have frequently accused the Biden administration of using an app called CBP One to allow hundreds of thousands of people into the country who would not otherwise be able to enter. They have said that the program — which allows about 1,450 people a day to schedule an appointment to enter the country — is basically a way to artificially keep the number of encounters at the border low.
On the northern border, the numbers are much lower. The Border Patrol made 23,721 arrests between October 2023 and September 2024, compared to 10,021 in the previous 12 months.
Trump also faced problems controlling illegal border crossings. More than 850,000 arrests were made in 2019, almost triple the number two years ago, although still well below the total of more than 2 million during two different years of the Biden presidency.
Drug smugglingTrump and many Republicans have repeatedly said the country’s southern border is wide open for drug smuggling. They have also linked immigrants to narcotics trafficking and have accused Mexico of not doing much to stop drug trafficking.
Much of the fentanyl in the United States comes to the country from Mexico.
The fentanyl plague began long before Biden became president. Border seizures have seen a significant increase during his administration, which could in part reflect improved detection methods. During fiscal year 2023, federal authorities seized about 27,000 pounds (12,247 kilograms) of fentanyl, up from 2,545 pounds (1,154 kilograms) in 2019, when Trump was president.
Cooperation between the governments of Mexico and the United States in the fight against drug trafficking undoubtedly suffered during the mandate of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who left office at the end of September.
Before López Obrador became president in December 2018, the United States worked closely with the Mexican Army to capture some of the most important drug trafficking kingpins.
But López Obrador, a nationalist and populist, constantly railed against the violence caused by the drug war waged by his predecessors and the U.S. governments. He proposed addressing the social causes of violence such as poverty and lack of opportunities for young people, a policy he called “hugs, not bullets.”
López Obrador denied for years that Mexico was a fentanyl producer, despite evidence to the contrary, including statements from his own security officials. He blamed American society — where he said children leave home too young — for cultivating addicts.
President Claudia Sheinbaum has only been in office for two months, but there are signs that she seems more willing to allow the military to go after the cartels than her predecessor.
But while the majority of fentanyl comes from Mexico, statistics show that it is Americans who smuggle this substance across the border. According to the United States Sentencing Commission, 86.4% of people who were convicted of fentanyl trafficking crimes during the 12-month period ending in September 2023 were US citizens.
Crime and immigrationTrump has also argued that the influx of immigrants has led to an increase in crime rates in the United States, even though statistics show violent crime is declining.
Texas is the only state that tracks crime by immigration status. The National Academy of Sciences published a study based on data from the Texas Department of Public Safety from 2012 to 2016, which revealed that those who were in the country illegally had “substantially lower crime rates than citizens born in the country.” country and legal immigrants in a wide range of serious crimes.”
While FBI statistics do not break down crimes by the immigration status of the perpetrator, there is no evidence of an increase in crimes committed by migrants, either along the US-Mexico border or in cities that receive the most influx of migrants, like New York. Studies have found that people living illegally in the United States are less likely to be arrested for violent, drug-related, and trespassing crimes than native-born Americans.
Some crimes are inevitable, due to the large immigrant population. It is estimated that in January 2022 there were 11 million people who were in the United States illegally, according to the latest estimate from the Department of Homeland Security. That year, the Census Bureau estimated the foreign-born population at 46.2 million people, or nearly 14% of the total, with most states posting double-digit percentage increases over the past 12 years.
Republicans have highlighted high-profile crimes committed by immigrants, such as the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old student who was murdered last February in Georgia, and have argued that any crime committed by a person who is in the country illegally It is a crime that should not have happened.
A Venezuelan man who entered the country illegally was convicted and sentenced to life in prison this month for Riley’s murder.