A Deep Dive Into a Trump Talking Point

A staple of former President Donald Trump's speeches for the law few years is an unsubstantiated claim that countries around the world are “emptying out their prisons” and “emptying out their mental institutions” and sending those people to the U.S. He has offered no proof. 

In recent speeches, Trump has added -- as supposed support for his claim -- that crime in Venezuela is down “a staggering 67%” in a year, while alleging that "migrant crime" is rampant in the U.S. Other times, he has put the drop in Venezuelan crime at “72% in a year.”

Deputy Managing Editor Robert Farley decided to take a deep dive into Venezuelan crime, prisons and gangs. He and Staff Writer Catalina Jaramillo conducted interviews with Venezuelan experts in that country's criminal justice system, and reviewed the available data. 

What they found is in today's article, "Crime Drop in Venezuela Does Not Prove Trump’s Claim the Country Is Sending Criminals to U.S."

As Rob and Catalina write, reliable crime statistics are notoriously difficult to obtain in Venezuela. In the absence of reliable government reporting, media and nongovernmental organizations have become the most trusted sources for documenting and tracking crime.

The independent Venezuelan Observatory of Violence in December reported a 25% decrease in violent deaths between 2022 and 2023. But the number of violent deaths has been declining for years in Venezuela -- even when Trump was the U.S. president. 
  
Roberto Briceño-León, the founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, told us the drop in crime is due to worsening economic and living conditions in the country. Those conditions have led to a massive out-migration of nearly 8 million people since 2014 -- coinciding with the installation of Venezuelan president and autocratic leader Nicolás Maduro. 

“Crime is reduced in Venezuela due to a reduction in crime opportunities,” Briceño-León told us.

The prison population, too, is declining. But Briceño-León and others in Venezuela told us that they have seen no evidence that the drop in crime or prison population supports Trump's claims. There are other reasons for the declines, as Rob and Catalina detail in their article. 

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Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "Posts Make Unsupported Claim About Kansas City Chiefs and Pride Month": The Kansas City Chiefs offer a “Pride Collection” of merchandise for the team’s LGBTQ+ fans. But social media posts are making the unsupported claim that the team “Refuses to Participate in Pride Month” this year. The claim apparently originated in a satirical article, and we could find no announcement from the team regarding this year’s Pride Month.
• "Q&A on Biden’s Border Order": On June 4, President Joe Biden announced new measures to restrict asylum eligibility for those apprehended while trying to enter the U.S. illegally across the southern border. Here, we answer several questions about Biden’s action.
• "Meme Spreads Unsupported Claim About Net Worth of Alvin Bragg": Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the conviction of former President Donald Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on May 30. Now Bragg has become the target of viral social media posts that claim, without evidence, that he has a net worth of $42 million or more and baselessly imply that Bragg is corrupt.

• "La pérdida de hielo antártico es significativa, al contrario de lo que se afirma": La Antártida está perdiendo masa de hielo en el océano, lo que contribuye al aumento global del nivel del mar. Pero un video popular tergiversó investigaciones centradas en las plataformas de hielo de la Antártida, que flotan en el mar en los bordes del continente, para sugerir incorrectamente que “no está claro si, a fin de cuentas, la Antártida está perdiendo hielo”.
• "Trump tergiversa nueva regulación que extiende ‘Obamacare’ a los beneficiarios de DACA": Una nueva regla de la administración de Biden permitirá que los beneficiarios de la Acción Diferida para los Llegados en la Infancia (DACA, por sus siglas en inglés) sean elegibles para obtener planes de seguro de salud establecidos por la Ley de Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio (ACA, por sus siglas en inglés), también conocida como Obamacare. Sin embargo, el expresidente Donald Trump ha tergiversado la regulación, afirmando que está “dando Obamacare y toda la atención médica gratuita del gobierno a los inmigrantes ilegales”.