Center for American Progress

Forget the ‘border crisis’ – it is Trump’s shutdown that’s made us less safe
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Forget the ‘border crisis’ – it is Trump’s shutdown that’s made us less safe

Michael Fuchs explains why President Donald Trump's shutdown is the real threat to national security.

President Trump closed the US government over a fabricated border crisis, and in doing so has sparked a real national security emergency. By shutting down the government, Trump has disabled America’s defenses against threats to national security.

Trump decided to shut down the government over the claim that America needs a wall to deal with a crisis at the border with Mexico. But there is no crisis on the border other than the humanitarian crisis of his own making, best illustrated by the thousands of children separated from their parents and the two children who died in Customs and Border Protection custody. Trump’s claims of more terrorists and crime flowing across the border are lies and the vast majority of hard drugs coming across the border come through official ports of entry, not between ports of entry where a wall might stand.

The above excerpt was originally published in The Guardian. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Michael Fuchs

Senior Fellow