Today, President Trump will commandeer primetime television networks at 9pm EST to announce his plan for building a wall along the Southern border of the United States. The government shutdown – now the second-longest shutdown in history – is in its 18th day after having begun on December 22, as a result of Trump’s demand for over $5 billion to fund his wall. As tonight’s oval office announcement is likely to contain misinformation, this post is an attempt to consolidate relevant facts about the border crisis in preparation for Trump’s announcement.

As a side note: to ease the burden of the shutdown, the White House has ordered the IRS to issue tax refunds on time. Ironically, the IRS employees’ pay will continue to be held until the shutdown is over. Moving on…

It is an unfortunate consequence of this Presidency that, when the President gains a reputation for speaking in inaccurate extremes, laypeople of both parties lose the reflex to consider nuances of important issues, as they grow comfortable assigning Trump’s statements either to be correct or outright wrong. This is particularly the case of the “border crisis”, which has been studded with so much misinformation that it has become difficult to tease apart fact from fiction. President Trump argues that illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border has become such a dangerous problem (leading to crime, drugs, and terrorism) that it is close to becoming a national emergency; indeed, he has threatened to declare a state of emergency during tonight’s address.

Trump claims that illegal immigration costs the United States $250 billion a year. There has been no study to back this number up. What is known is that fewer than a third of illegal immigrants in the United States actually comes through the border; the vast majority are welcomed via visas, and stay after their visas expired. This means that a wall at the border would do very little to halt illegal immigration. Furthermore, the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. is down significantly; a portion of this trend is attributed to the recession, but truthfully much of this decline is likely also secondary to Trump’s threats and increased border enforcement.

Trump says that there have been over 4000 known or suspected terrorists that crossed over into the U.S. via the border. State officials say there have been no documented cases of terrorists coming over the southern border, and there have only been 6 migrants detained for links to terrorism last year.

Trump’s mischaracterization of the “border crisis” has led many to completely discount the notion that there is indeed a border crisis brewing, just not the one that Trump is talking about. Trump’s monologue about illegal immigration has masked and redirected the problem of migrants from Central America seeking asylum in the United States. While he has been raising attention and gathering support to build a wall to fend off illegal immigrants, the border patrol continues to operate on a metered policy, which means that families seeking refuge from poverty and violence wait up to weeks or even months to get help. Meanwhile, the flu season has already killed two children seeking refuge, and many more are ill. The irony may be lost on some: in aggressively pursuing illegal immigrants and would-be terrorists at the southern border, Trump has done more than others to create a problem of his own at the U.S.-Mexico border, affecting numerous innocent migrants in need of U.S. assistance. More reading on the growing chaos along the border is available through NYT.

It will be especially important today to consider these examples of misinformation about illegal immigration across the southern border during Trump’s national address. In particular, the growing problem of Central American migrant caravans deserves separate mention, rather than being ignored or lumped into “illegal immigration” as the Trump administration has been doing until now. While the Democrats are fighting for airtime to address and counter Trump’s remarks, it will be up to individuals to interpret his statements with caution tonight.