Donald Trump claimed he was staying in the White House to work over the Christmas break, which makes no sense while Congress isn’t even in session, but what he really meant is that he’s staying in the White House to brood over Fox News and tweet more malicious things about brown people coming into the country.
Trump had the opportunity to get funding for his wall. He rejected a bill for that funding because it was offered in exchange for a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, young people who came into the country as children with their parents.
Here are some more facts.
The undocumented immigrant population slowed under Obama and stabilized from the periods of growth under President Bush. That number is no longer slowing but remaining at similar rates under Trump.
The number of people trying to come in illegally at the southern border has fallen significantly. The rate of border apprehensions fell significantly under President Obama and have not fallen much under Trump.
Nearly half of all undocumented immigrants did not enter the country by crossing the border. Instead, they came in legally under a work or tourist visa and stayed past the time those visas expired.
‘As border apprehensions have declined, estimates show a growing proportion of the undocumented population legally entered the country on visas but overstayed the time limits on those visas. A Center for Migration Studies report estimates that 44 percent of those in living in the U.S. illegally in 2015 were visa overstays. That’s up from an estimated 41 percent in 2008.’
Facts are an annoyance to Trump. He doesn’t read or listen to others who explain those facts to him. Instead, he plays into his base’s most racist fears by lashing out against immigrants and insist that they are the source of crimes that happen in the U.S. perpetrated by U.S. citizens: drug trafficking, gang activity, and human trafficking.
Twitter wasn’t buying it. Read some of their comments below:
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
