The Wall That Will Save the World

Yesterday, January 9th 2019, President Trump addressed the nation from the White House pleading with them and their representatives to reconsider the building of a 234 mile steel wall along our southern border. The wall, which will cost almost $60 billion to construct, making it the largest public works project since the Interstate Highway Project. This rhetoric has been repeated since the beginning of Trump’s campaign in 2016.

Although he sounds as confident as ever, many of the things he’s saying is blatantly wrong or misleading. Many of the claims he made are to rally his supporters and paint a picture of a “growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border.” 

In this speech however, Trump makes claims that might be very scary (if they were correct).

In the first sentence he says there is a “security crisis at the southern border”, even though the number of attempted illegal crossings is at a 20-year low.

He then says border patrol agents are encountering thousands of attempted crossings everyday, but his administration puts it in the hundreds.

Next he brings up drugs and arrests which he says “Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border.” But while 90% does come through virtually all of it is through legal entry points and the majority of drugs coming into the US wouldn’t be helped by building a wall.

“Last month, 20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States, a dramatic increase. These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs.” No government statistic tracks children smuggled in by bad actors, “coyotes” or drug gangs. Most illegal immigrants here today are overstaying their visas, not illegally crossing over the border as Trump wants us to believe.

Trump has been using false and misleading claims for as long as people have listened to him and with him now being president these untrue claims carry much more weight. The President need to be held accountable for what he plays off to the American People as truth because it can have huge repercussions. His supporters don’t check if what he’s saying is true, and if they did perhaps they’d change their minds, as unlikely as it is. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/09/fact-checking-president-trumps-oval-office-address-immigration/?utm_term=.7b579d04ccb3