Trump scares his followers with talk of "illegals," but border crossings are lowest in four years

During Donald Trump's press conference at his Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey on Thursday, he pivoted from speaking points meant to focus on inflation to, once again, rattle off misinformation about Kamala Harris wanting to "end detention of illegal alien migrants, releasing vicious monsters into our communities to rape, maim and murder." And this has been a popular loop-de-doop of his for years, regardless of who his opponent is. But it's usually not based on facts by any stretch of the word.

Having made a habit out of scaring his followers with talk of "illegals," with several MAGA enthusiasts stumbling into the subject as recently as today speaking to press just before his rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, it would be interesting to hear his response to a new tally from border agents revealing this fake news of crossings to be at their lowest in four years.

In a Friday afternoon feature by The Washington Post breaking down the decline in illegal border crossings, they highlight data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection showing "56,408 illegal crossings in July, a 32 percent decline from June and the fifth straight month that the figure has fallen," with officials attributing the change "to executive actions Biden announced this spring that effectively shut off access to the U.S. asylum system for migrants who enter illegally."

“The Biden-Harris Administration has taken effective action, and Republicans continue to do nothing,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a statement on the numbers, adding that Republican lawmakers “are more interested in cynically playing politics than securing the border.”