For much his presidency, Donald Trump desperately tried to convince Americans that immigrants were dangerous criminals, despite evidence to the contrary. In one especially creepy example, the Republican hosted a White House event with “the American victims of illegal immigration” — Trump labeled them “Angel Families” — at which the then-president thought it’d be a good idea to autograph poster-sized photos of deceased crime victims.
Several months later, at a related event, reporters tried to explain to Trump that data from his own administration proved that immigrants, on average, commit fewer crimes than those born in the United States. The Republican rejected the evidence and stuck to his alternative version of reality.
Hoping to return to office, Trump has reembraced the message, once again suggesting that the United States is dealing with a crisis of foreign criminals.
“The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime,” he said at a photo-op in Texas yesterday. “It’s a new form of vicious violation to our country. It’s migrant crime. We call it Biden migrant crime, but that’s a little bit long. So we’ll just leave it.”
The fact that Trump focused attention on messaging and public-relations branding reinforced an obvious truth — his priority was political, not substantive — but more important was the fact that the Republican didn’t appear to have any idea what he was talking about. NBC News reported:
[D]espite the former president’s campaign rhetoric, expert analysis and available data from major-city police departments show that despite several horrifying high-profile incidents, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States. … An NBC News review of available 2024 crime data from the cities targeted by Texas’ “Operation Lone Star” — which buses or flies migrants from the border to major cities in the interior — shows overall crime levels dropping in those cities that have…
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