The Jerry Brown-Donald Trump saga over his National Guard stunt continues, sorta. According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have agreed to Brown’s terms on sending the National Guard to the border. “California troops would abstain from immigration-enforcement duties. Brown said he would send up to 400 personnel to focus on fighting drug trafficking and gangs.” DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen also confirmed the deal through a tweet:
But then the tweeter-in-chief—probably still pretty pissed that government officials have agreed to Brown’s even more limited tasks when it comes to the already limited tasks the National Guard can legally do—decided to chime in, threatening to stiff the National Guard, which he’s had plenty of experience doing to the small businesses who have helped build his hotels and towers over the years:
“There was no immediate comment from Brown’s office in Sacramento,” the Washington Post continued. “But the seesawing exchanges continued to play out on Twitter, where an account operated by the California National Guard said the state had ‘written confirmation’ that the Pentagon will pay for the troop deployment agreed upon with Brown. ‘In short, nothing has changed today,’ the Guard tweeted.” A patriotic move nonetheless, Cadet Bone Spurs.
Not that any of this drama should distract from the fact that Trump continues to lie—shocking!—about so-called “sanctuary cities,” crime in California, and attempting to tie that crime to immigrants. The truth:
In reality, in 2016 (the most recent year for which data is available) the murder rate in California was 4.9 per 100,000 residents. Every murder is a tragedy, of course, but that’s lower than the national average of 5.3 per 100,000 despite California’s significantly larger-than-average immigrant population.
Or perhaps I should say that California has a below-average murder rate likely because of its high foreign-born population since immigrants appear to commit crimes at a lower rate than the native-born population. Indeed, the three most murderous states in the country — Louisiana, Missouri, and Alabama — all have low foreign-born populations.
In fact, further research shows that “the 10 places with the largest increases in immigrants all had lower levels of crime in 2016 than in 1980”:
According to data from the study, a large majority of the areas have many more immigrants today than they did in 1980 and fewer violent crimes. The Marshall Project extended the study’s data up to 2016, showing that crime fell more often than it rose even as immigrant populations grew almost across the board.
At least three former Trump officials—Steve Bannon, Rob Porter and Corey Lewandowski—have been accused or charged with assault. Trump himself has been accused of sexual assault by at least a dozen women. So if you’re looking for some actual “bad hombres” and moochers living high off U.S. taxpayers, a suggestion would be to check the Trump administration first.