Were not sure why, but President Donald Trump has worked this election cycle to see that Americans should feel very afraid of immigrants.
From coast to coast, Mr. Trump has been casting immigrants as our biggest threat by saying, despite proof to the contrary, that those without documentation commit a preponderance of crimes once they make their way here. The truth, however, is that native-born Americans overwhelmingly commit the bulk of crimes, according to recent studies by the Cato Institute and another by Michael Light and Arthur Miller published in the periodical Criminology.
But Mr. Trump isnt keen on facts.
Instead, he thinks of a way to generate fear, and runs with it.
So rather than talk about the dangers these people are fleeing in Central America, Mr. Trump fabricates a narrative about the dangers they will cause here.
The Democrat Party is openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws or, violate our borders, and bankrupt our country, he told campaign crowds Monday.
The Democratic Party wants to sign illegal aliens up for free health care, free welfare and free education, he continued.
He also talks as if a caravan of immigrants, still a thousand miles away and on foot, will overwhelm our borders, calling it an invasion of dangerous people, including unknown Middle Easterners.
If you dont want America to be overrun by masses of illegal aliens and giant caravans, you better vote Republican, the president said
No, no, no.
Just as with the caravan in March, the migrants are mainly women and children, not thugs and murderers, who are walking en masse because the journey is dangerous. And their numbers, for those allowed to claim U.S. asylum, will be easily absorbed.
In short, Mr. Trump has manufactured a crisis that he wants us to believe only he can resolve.
Ten-to-one, all talk of the caravan will be dropped Wednesday morning, just as it was last spring.
DO WE NEED immigration reform? Absolutely.
But let it be based on truth and compassion.
