AP FACT CHECK: Trump on border stats _ and a Merkel mystery
By CALVIN WOODWARD and HOPE YENMay 27, 2018
[...]
TRUMP: “We’re down on immigration crossing the border — more than 40 percent.” — forum Wednesday in Bethpage, New York.
THE FACTS: Illegal crossings actually are up 20 percent since he became president, according to the yardstick he uses to measure them — the number of Border Patrol arrests.
There is no precise measure of illegal crossings because some people don’t get caught. The Trump administration uses arrests as the best gauge of whether crossings are going up or down. The Obama administration did likewise.
Border Patrol arrests did fall last year to the lowest level since 1971. But since April of last year, arrests have climbed steadily. One factor in that increase may be that people are now taking their chances to cross into the U.S. illegally after an initial wait-and-see attitude about Trump’s tough-talking approach to people sneaking into the country.
Last month, there were more than 50,000 overall border arrests, which are made up of people who are stopped at land crossings and other official points of entry, according to federal data. That was more than triple the number from April 2017, which was the lowest tally on record since the Homeland Security Department was created in 2003.
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