National EmergencyThere is no national emergency on the border, Mr. President
President Trump [last week] declared a national emergency on the border to construct some portion of his promised border fence. “We’re talking about an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs,” President Trump said during his remarks. Lawyers will spill much ink arguing about the legalities surrounding the law and whether President Trump can declare a national emergency. Regardless of what the law ultimately means, no reasonable person can look at the southern border and agree that it rises to the level of a national emergency.
President Trump [last week] declared a national emergency on the border to construct some portion of his promised border fence. “We’re talking about an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs,” President Trump said during his remarks.
Lawyers will spill much ink arguing about the legalities surrounding the law and whether President Trump can declare a national emergency. Regardless of what the law ultimately means, no reasonable person can look at the southern border and agree that it rises to the level of a national emergency. Below, I will counter the most common arguments made by President Trump and others in support of declaring a national emergency.
Crime
The most common argument in favor of a national emergency is that there is an epidemic of immigration-induced crime and death on the border. This is simply not the case.
First, the crime rate in the 23 counties along the U.S. border with Mexico is below that of counties in the United States that do not lie along the Mexican border. Violent and property crime rates are both slightly lower along the border, but the homicide rate along the border is a whopping 34 percent below the homicide rate in non-border counties. If the entire United States had a homicide rate as low as that along the border in 2017, then there would have been about 5,720 fewer homicides nationwide that year. Murder rates in U.S. border states aren’t even correlated with murder rates in neighboring Mexican states.
Second, illegal immigrants apprehended along the border have a low criminal conviction rate. When Border Patrol apprehends an illegal immigrant, they run their fingerprints through the IAFIS system and other databases to see if the individual is a convicted criminal or if he is wanted for crimes here or abroad. The government then publishes the number of criminal convictions that apprehended illegal border crossers have been convicted of by the type of crime.
