FACT BRIEF

Are hundreds of thousands of US residents killed every year because of illegal border crossings?

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

By Tom Kertscher

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For a claim by former President Donald Trump to be even marginally correct, every homicide and fatal drug overdose in the U.S. would have to be due to illegal border activity. There's no evidence of that.

Campaigning April 2, 2024, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump said that “hundreds of thousands of people, between the drugs that come in the border and all of the death that’s brought into the border in so many different ways,” are being killed annually.

A Republican National Committee spokesperson replied to Wisconsin Watch's request for information, but provided no data to back Trump’s claim.

The latest federal figures show total homicides numbered 21,156 in 2022; and total drug overdose deaths during President Joe Biden’s first three years in office peaked at 107,941 in 2022.

Fentanyl smugglers are far more likely to be U.S. citizens than undocumented immigrants, according to Cato Institute.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

Right Side Broadcasting Network LIVE REPLAY: President Donald J. Trump to Hold a Rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin - 4/2/24

Axios Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

Google Docs Ben Feldmeyer email 4/3/24

Google Docs Alex Nowrasteh email 4/3/24

Cato Institute Fentanyl is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers

Centers for Disease Control Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2002–2022

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