This is a Four-Pinocchio (whopper-sized) claim. For the 2017 financial year, the Department of Homeland Security reported 606,926 suspected in-country overstays, or twice the number of southwest border apprehensions.Ģ) The wall will be paid for by the new US-Mexico-Canada trade deal. In the 2016 financial year, US officials reported 408,870 southwest border apprehensions and 544,676 suspected in-country overstays.
There are far more cases of travellers overstaying their visas than southwest border apprehensions. In the 2018 financial year, apprehensions increased to 396,579, but that was less than half the total of 2007.
By any available measure, there is no new crisis at the border.Īpprehensions of people trying to cross the southern border peaked most recently at 1.6 million in 2000 and have been in decline since, partly because of technology upgrades, tougher penalties post-9/11, a decline in migration rates from Mexico and a sharp rise in the number of Border Patrol officers.Ĭustoms and Border Protection reported 303,916 apprehensions at the US-Mexico border for the 2017 financial year, the lowest in more than 45 years.
