As a quick followup to the previous post about the lies in President Trump’s immigration speech, it’s worth noting that one of them may actually backfire on him. Going into the speech, I was willing to acknowledge his point about drug smuggling, which really has increased recently and really is a problem. But I didn’t realize that nearly all drug smuggling is done via legal ports of entry (hidden in spare tires, placed in containers on legitimate commercial trucks, etc.). I’ve now been told this about a dozen times, and I realize that drug smuggling would be only marginally affected by more border fencing.
So not only was Trump’s speech probably ineffective in general, it might have wrecked one of the points that even wall skeptics like me were willing to give him. Nice work.