Thread by @ErrataRob

1/ So I thought I'd write up a few notes on Trump's oval office address (transcript here). The reason I'm writing this is up is because Pelosi/Schumer derided Trump on the "facts" -- and then provided none of their own.
nytimes.com/2019/01/08/us/…

2/ First of all, I think the context is that Trump wants to declare a "state of emergency" to bypass congress. He's either trying to convince us, or test the waters to see if we'll accept it. We should not let him, this would be a horrible abuse of power, what despots do.

3/ There is legitimately a "humanitarian crisis" going on. As this Wikipedia article describes, there has been waves of refugees, including a lot of children, coming from the three countries immediately south of Mexico since 2014.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Amer…

4/ But building a wall (assuming it works) doesn't solve the humanitarian crisis, it just stops it from happening here, letting them die on the other side of the border in Mexico, or back home where they come from.

5/ So the "humanitarian crisis" is real. But it's not "growing" (it's down from 2014 levels), and it's not a "security" crisis. These are falsehoods. At least I've looked, and can find nothing supporting the assertions.

6/ I assume he's not talking about any other crisis. Immigration from Mexico in general is down sharply, indeed, more illegal immigrants from Mexico are returning rather than coming.

7/ He's right that the Central American refugees are taxing our system, because we aren't prepared to handle so many children/minors. I don't think it supports his wall as a solution, but it's factual.

8/ That's a lie. Trump has explicitly been unwelcoming to even legal immigrants, and wants to reduce legal immigration (e.g. "chain migration"). Also, we don't have "uncontrolled immigration". We may need more control, but we are far from "uncontrolled".

9/ The Democrats have already proposed more funding for border security in exchange for paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants, which Republicans have rejected. Definitely not welcoming of controlled, legal paths for immigration.

10/ "Strains public resources" and "drives down wages". This is a complicated subject. This paper has a thorough discussion of this topic. tl;dr: there's some truth, but Trump is being deceptive here.
nap.edu/read/23550/cha…

11/ That study is disingenuous because it lumps highly educated immigrants on H1B visas with unskilled labor from Mexico. On the whole, unskilled immigrants cost more than they benefit the economy. However, while a net negative, it's not a "strain" on public resources.

12/ Likewise, it's correct that unskilled immigrants reduce the wages of unskilled native born, which are more likely blacks and latinos, but the effect is small. On the whole, however, they are a benefit to the economy.

13/ Immigrant workers are also immigrant consumers, creating jobs, so the net effect is essentially nil. However, they tend to have plusses: more likely working age, more mobile to meet economic demand, and so on.

14/ As for drugs, there is some truth to Trump's facts, but at the same time, it's essentially a lie. The drugs come in through normal checkpoints hidden in cars, or in ports, not across the countryside. A wall would have no effect on stopping drugs.

15/ The drug overdose crisis is real, btw, it's just not something a wall would have any impact on.

16/ So there is child sex trafficking going on, and this certainly complicates the debate. Naive solutions like "abolish ICE" would just make child sex trafficking worse. But vast majority of the children coming here are not being trafficked.

17/ Indeed, a woman/child is more likely to be fleeing trafficking/violence than being a victim of it on the way here across the border. If you want to stop it, open the borders, not close them to sufferers.

18/ So I can find no professionals that say such a wall would work, and a ton of stuff that says it wouldn't. Walls to work in urban areas, btw, and dramatically cut border crossings when the current ones were erected.

19/ But most immigration is people overstaying visas, and most of the Central American crisis is people showing up at the normal border crossing asking for refugee status.

20/ As a security expert, I deal with the "Law of Diminishing Returns" all the time, and walls on the border seem a lot like that. The more walls that exist, the less benefit additional walls will have.

21/ Democrats show pictures of the Rio Grand and the absurdity of putting walls there, but this doesn't disprove the benefits of where Trump wants to put the next $5 billion of wall, which isn't in the Rio Grand. On the other hand, Trump hasn't shown the benefits, either.

22/ Breitbart has a "fact checking" agreeing with Trump's assertion that wall will pay for itself. However, it assumes it'll stop all immigration, which is laughable on its face. The best it can hope for is marginal reductions in immigration.
breitbart.com/politics/2019/…

23/ Though to be fair, it's about effectiveness. Even the pro-immigrant study linked above shows that unskilled first generation workers have costs, and it's plausible that $5 billion spent on stopping illegal immigration could have $5 billion in cost reductions.

24/ But while a plausible argument in theory, Trump hasn't made it, and instead cites laughable statistics, like claiming it'll have any impact whatsoever on drug costs.

25/ First of all, that trade deal was nothing more than symbolic changes. Second of all, THAT'S NOT HOW TRADE WORKS. "Trade deficit" is unfortunate terminology implying we are losing money. We aren't.

26/ So the AP has a notable take on one thing. I think's an admirable effort to see both sides, and would normally be reasonable for previous shutdowns. In my opinion, it's all Trump to blame here, though.

https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/1082857277084893184

27/ It's not "compromise", it's "give in". "Compromise" is when there is give-and-take. In previous years, Democrats have been willing to fund more fences in exchange for a path-to-citizenship and formalizing DACA. It appears it's solely Trump who is unwilling to compromise.

28/ Anyway, the last bits are crime. As so many studies have shown, immigrants, legal or illegal, have lower crime rates than native born. It's still a tragedy when these rapes/murders occur, but this political exploitation is clearly invalid.