I’m watching horror so you don’t have to. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gave a speech in Phoenix, Arizona about immigration following his trip to Mexico earlier this week.
He claims that our “immigration system” needs an overhaul. He’s talking about picking and choosing who gets to enter the country. This was supposed to clarify his stances on immigration, but the speech was barely coherent. He says people have lost their lives because of our “open borders.” That doesn’t even make sense.
Also, naturally, Trump lied. First, he said that immigrants are responsible for 25,000 homicides every year. That number is for homicides during the 50-year period between 1955 and 2010. In contrast, 11,200 people were arrested for homicides among the general United States population in 2010 alone.
He also lied about the money that immigrants cost us every year. He says that they cost $113 billion per year. He didn’t pull this number out of his ass, but he did get it from a biased anti-immigrant group, Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Donald Trump promises his #immigration speech will deliver "the truth". His pants are already on fire. pic.twitter.com/UVk0q1Hf2Z
— The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) September 1, 2016
Immigrants are actually adding to the economy. They are contributing $11.64 billion per year in state and local taxes. They have also contributed $35.1 into the Medicare Trust Fund between 2000 and 2011.
Trump also said that President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton are “surrendering the safety of the American people to open borders.” The president actually increased the border staff to 21,444 in 2011. Yes, Obama and Clinton want policies that are more lenient than Trump’s, but they do not want “open borders.”
Trump also claimed:
“Our government has no idea. It could be 3 million, it could be 30 million. They have no idea.”
See, Mr Trump, we have the Homeland Security Department for this. There are 11.4 million people in the country illegally.
He claims that Hillary Clinton will be writing laws from the Oval Office. I guess he thinks she will be a dictator?
He talked about creating a special task force to deport people. Of course, he had to call Hillary Clinton a criminal in the process. That seems to be a common GOP insult in this election.
https://youtu.be/QNA1dVvBUp0
Featured image by Donkey Hotey via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
