Posted by Jack
“We don’t like him; we don’t want him; we reject his visit,” a former president of Mexico said of Trump’s trip. Former President Vicente Fox previously apologized to Trump after affirming Mexico was not going to pay for “that f—-ing wall,” was today quick to slam his visit. Massive protests are planned. According to the latest polling, less than 4% of Mexicans say they support Trump.
Deported migrants climb a fence at the U.S.- Mexico border as they prepare for the 6th annual Marcha Migrante, or Migrant March in Tijuana, Mexico, Wednesday Feb. 2, 2011. The Tijuana to Mexicali pilgrimage is organized by the group Border Angels to raise awareness on immigration issues. Marchers are demanding a stop of nighttime deportations and human rights abuses by police on both sides of the border. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)
With less than 24 hour notice, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump accepted an open invitation from Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to visit the country less than 70 days before the U.S. election and on the same day Trump is set to deliver a pivotal speech on immigration in Arizona.
The Washington Post first broke news of Trump’s hastily planned jaunt to Mexico City late Tuesday night. Both Trump and Peña Nieto confirmed the Wednesday meeting hours.
So, if you believe the polling, almost the entire country of Mexico fears and/or hates Trump because he is a threat on some level to them. Apparently he has insulted their nation by saying Mexico is using America as a dumping ground for many of their undesirables. Trump said, “They are not sending us their best and brightest.” And he said the many criminals are entering the US illegally from Mexico. Trump said drugs, murderer, rapists, thieves, etc., come across the border illegally and he wants to put a stop to it. He alleges too many of our citizens are being robbed and killed by illegal aliens sneaking across our southern border. He thinks we are paying a heavy price and it must stop.
Was Trump telling the truth? Do the statistics of arrests and deportations support him? Are American’s really paying a heavy price for the pourus Southern border? Well, if you are a democrat your response todate to these serious questions has been something like this: “Nanah-nanah, (fingers in ears) I can’t hear you! YOU”RE A RACIST!” End of conversation. As a country – I’m pretty sure we’re screwed.
PS If you are planning a trip to Mexico, it’s probably best not to wear your Trump baseball cap or have Trump stickers on your luggage – you may not be coming back.
According to Lifezette.com, TheDonald left his own plane behind and flew to Mexico in an unmarked plane.
Can’t blame him as he probably didn’t want his own plane covered in graffiti or stolen while he was meeting Mexico’s prez . . . .
Trumps visit is brilliant. President Nieto was wise to meet with Trump. It’s a win win. Trump said the one hour meeting was preliminary and they discussed five shared goals:
http://www.latimes.com/politics/“>LA Times Poll has Trump at 45.3% and Hillary at 41.9%
Where the heck is Hillary anyway? All she does is fund raise and rest. When she has rally’s they are in small venues with low turnout.
ABC reports that Hillary issued a snarky response and implied Trump dropped by when in fact he was invited. Apparently she too was invited but so far finds it more instructive to issue insults than to engage in what she called the “hard work of building relationships.”
In the last month Trump has shown that he will work hard for the American people…the man is tireless, focused, and committed to making America great again for everyone!
Trump has made it through hump day and did not do something to self destruct. I’m not sure how many days it has been, but over seven at least. Here he looked presidential.
I am impressed. As Tina says, this is brilliant and it does show his amazing energy. Hillary was invited too and passed. This was a significant maneuver by Trump, he needs to keep following up.
Going to Mexico? No need, you can find people who hate America and Americans right here. Just go to a La Raza or MEChA or BLM or Black Panthers rally. Or just walk around downtown Chicago or Milwaukee, or Baltimore (to name a few) at night. Or go to an NFL game.
Who is paying for the wall? The same people who is paying for this —
More Than 28,000 Mexican Citizens Housed in U.S. Federal Prisons
He hit a home run with his immigration speech tonight. He laid out his plan and ended with the parents and wives of loved ones killed by illegals. It will go down as his turning point. Even I was very impressed.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/cartoons/campaign-2012/
Good article.
The Day I Went Head-To-Head With Donald Trump:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/08/19/the-day-i-went-head-to-head-with-donald-trump/#14fb85005570
Guys, the speech was terrible. Trump said again the number of illegal immigrants in our country could be 30 million, when even the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies says that’s impossible. He made other factually incorrect statements too.
The fact is illegal immigration, like all immigration, is way down. Illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born people–you are under less threat from illegal immigrants than you are from people born here. We’ve also had record deportations and border security spending under Obama. Anyone who tells you there is an “illegal immigration crisis” and that this should be our nation’s top priority is just looking to stoke fear. We have real problems in this country. Trump is simply using illegal immigrants as a scapegoat for those problems. Immigrants don’t steal our jobs and they add to our economy according to nearly every reputable economist. Don’t fall for the rhetoric over this non-existent immigration crisis.
Tim, thanks for sharing your opinion, but when you state facts it’s best to prove they are facts and show us your source. To quote from yourself, “Spreading unverified information from unreliable sources *does* hurt the public discourse.”
You say illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than citizens. Where did that come from? You say illegal immigration is way down, define way down please. What is the number that represents way down and please cite your source. How about your source for this one, “Illegal Immigrants don’t steal our jobs and they add to our economy.” You left off illegal, I added it for accuracy. I tried to find the alleged misinformation by Trump where he said there were 30 million illegals in the USA and I didn’t find it. I know candidates do make goofs, so he could have misspoke, however I checked a number of news sources, but nobody in mainstream news mention that? http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-launches-long-awaited-immigration-speech/story?id=41786446. Where did you get your information?
I agree that this election is being promoted far more on fear than enthusiasm. Neither candidate is scoring over 30% for popularity and likeability, according to the latest polling. Each side thinks America is going to be severely hurt if the other side wins the White House. They both might be right, which would explain the low voter endorsements.
“More than four-fifths (81 percent) of Americans say they would feel afraid following the election of one of the two presumptive US presidential nominees, a poll by The Associated Press-GfK said on Thursday. That figure includes a quarter who say it does not matter who wins: they are scared of both.
The online poll of 1,009 adults was conducted between July 7 and 11.”
Thanks for the reply, Jack.
Trump repeated the 30 million number in his immigration speech on Wednesday. He’s used this number many times in the past. Fact Check, Politifact and NPR all reported on it. These sources all lean left, especially NPR, but Politifact quotes the very conservative Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower levels of immigration, as saying the number can’t possibly be over 20 million.
http://www.npr.org/2016/08/31/492096565/fact-check-donald-trumps-speech-on-immigration
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/trump-still-off-on-immigration/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/01/donald-trump/donald-trump-repeats-pants-fire-claim-about-30-mil/
To be fair, Trump said it “could” be 30 million, but that the government has ” no idea.” He does this a lot–the message is “Don’t trust any numbers that experts give you, just trust your gut.” It’s irresponsible.
“You say illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than citizens. Where did that come from?”
I have found stats on immigrants as a whole, but it has been hard to find reliable data focusing on illegal immigrants and crime. USA Today tries to show that illegal immigrants commit less crime, but I’m not sure how strong their evidence is in the last paragraph here:
On the other side, many immigration advocates have been pointing to a report also released last week by the American Immigration Council. That study used different kinds of data that led to the same conclusion, that undocumented immigrants commit violent crimes at a far lower rate than native-born Americans.
First there’s the big picture. From 1990 to 2013, the number of undocumented immigrants in the country tripled from 3.5 million to 11.2 million. Yet during that time, violent crime rates dropped 48% nationwide, according to the report. Since undocumented immigrants make up such a small percentage of the population, it’s impossible to draw a straight conclusion from those numbers, so let’s see what else they’ve got..
The authors also looked at incarceration rates for males between 18 and 39, since most crimes are committed by males in that age range. Using data from the 2010 Census, the report found that 1.6% of foreign-born males are in jail, compared with 3.3% of the native-born population. Researchers have long questioned the accuracy of Census data for prisoners, since the information they get from inmates is often incomplete, and immigrants could lie out of fear of being deported. But the authors found similar trends going back to 1980, so that helps bolster their case.
Finally, the authors tried to isolate undocumented immigrants through a variety of narrow studies conducted in recent decades. In each case, they found evidence to show that undocumented immigrants were less likely to commit violent crimes than their native-born neighbors.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/16/voices-gomez-undocumented-immigrant-crime-san-francisco-shooting/30159479/
The article does a better job showing that claims of a crime wave by illegal immigrants are overblown:
Supporters of the Trump theory have been pointing to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission that found undocumented immigrants account for disturbingly high levels of violent crime. While they represent just 3.5% of the U.S. population, undocumented immigrants represented 7% of federal prison sentences following convictions on charges of sexual abuse, 9% of murders, 12% of assaults and 30% of kidnappings in 2013.
Case closed, right? Far from it.
Only a tiny percentage of the nation’s violent crimes are handled by the federal court system. Yes, undocumented immigrants accounted for 9.2% of federal murder convictions in 2013, but that represents a grand total of eight murder cases. When you consider that the FBI estimates there were 14,196 murders in the U.S. in 2013, those few cases handled by the federal court system don’t quite register as a reliable sample set.
The same goes for the other violent crimes cited in those statistics. Add the fact that undocumented immigrants are far more likely to be caught up in the federal court system because of non-violent immigration violations, and the numbers shouldn’t mean much.
But when updated data for 2014 were released last week, largely mirroring the previous year’s figures, many pounced on them as proof of rampant crime by undocumented immigrants. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., cited the data in a column last week, and the numbers received prominent coverage by conservative outlets such as Breitbart.
So even if there’s little evidence that illegal immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than the general population, there also doesn’t seem to be much evidence that they commit more crimes either.
It also seems to follow that if most illegal immigrants come here out of desparation, they aren’t going to draw attention to themselves by committing crimes. Of course, there are those who do, and that’s why the Obama administration has focused on violent offenders. Trump keeps saying he wants to deport them all (except when he says he wants to work with those who have been here a long time–he doesn’t know what his position is), which would be a huge waste of resources.
“You say illegal immigration is way down, define way down please. What is the number that represents way down and please cite your source.”
This is from November 2015, so it’s a bit old. I’m not sure we have immigration data for 2016 yet:
More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from both countries. The same data sources also show the overall flow of Mexican immigrants between the two countries is at its smallest since the 1990s, mostly due to a drop in the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/
” How about your source for this one, “Illegal Immigrants don’t steal our jobs and they add to our economy.””
My source is the conservative/libertarian CATO Institute. They’ve written extensively on both legal and illegal immigration and have found concerns over both are overblown.
I agree that both candidates profit from fear. I have similar problems with anti-gun hysteria on the left. Parading mothers of children who died from gun violence to argue our country would be better off if people don’t own guns is no better than parading parents of people killed by illegal immigrants to argue that we’d be better off without them. I do favor some gun laws, but some liberals really want to gut the second amendment, and that scares me. It also scares me that some conservatives want to deport 11-16 million people. Both gun violence and illegal immigration are problems, but we need real solutions, not fearmongering. The theatrics in Congress over the “ban guns for people on the terror watch list, without trial” bill were abhorrent. People need to think about the Constitution and about human rights before they propose policies.