| No Images? Click here  In a primetime televised address Tuesday, President Donald Trump repeated his demand for $5.7 billion in border wall money in order to end the over three-week federal government shutdown, offering the deal as the only solution to solve a major national security crisis.“This barrier is absolutely critical to border security. It’s also what our professionals at the border want and need,” Trump said, describing the impasse as a “choice between right and wrong, between justice and injustice.”But the only thing resembling a crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border isn’t an existential threat to national security ― it’s the question of how to handle a historically high number of Central American families and children coming into the country, many of whom are asking for asylum or some other humanitarian relief from deportation.HuffPost reporters Angelina Chapin and Roque Planas cover immigration and wrote about how Trump is stretching the truth. Here is Chapin.Talk to us about your story. How did you arrive at that conclusion that Trump's border crisis is a myth?Roque has been reporting on immigration for roughly seven years and has a really good grasp on how migration trends have changed over time. He could easily debunk Trump’s inflammatory claims about a spike in illegal immigration and explain the roots of Trump’s fabricated crisis.Since the Trump administration began separating children from their parents at the border in April, I’ve been reporting on the many ways migrant families are being mistreated by the government. So we combined forces to come up with our thesis: While Trump is moaning about a mythical crisis involving illegal immigrants and border security, his policies have created real humanitarian problems for migrant families, who are trying to cross the border in record numbers.What surprised you about reporting this analysis?I’m consistently shocked by how the Trump administration continues to depict migrants as criminals and terrorists who smuggle drugs and weapons into our country, join gangs like MS-13 and murder U.S. citizens.In reality, the biggest group of migrants currently being apprehended by Border Patrol are parents and children who are fleeing unspeakable violence in their home countries. But Trump’s goal is to make people fear, rather than empathize with immigrants, and his lies have been remarkably effective.Anything else you'd like to add?Pieces like ours really show the importance of historical data. We can expose the President’s many lies about immigration by doing research into past immigration trends and pulling the figures to show that in a big-picture context, his “crisis” is baloney.
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