In the late 1990s, illegal border crossings peaked. It was a crisis of near-apocalyptic proportions as immigrants streamed into the US in record numbers.
Wait. Wait. No. That did not happen.
In the late 1990s, illegal border crossing peaked. That's true. It's also true that from 1997 to 1999, the American economy created 3.2 million jobs per year (that's 824k more jobs a year than the economy has created in the last three years). Violent crime had fallen by a third from early in the decade. It was no crisis. No apocalypse.
And illegal border crossings were 5X what they are now. 5X.
So, two lies in the claim that our current situation is a crisis for which we should close the government. The first lie is that illegal immigration is now high. It's not. The second lie is that illegal immigration drives a spike in unemployment and crime. It does not.
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