President Trump on Tuesday insisted that Germany’s crime rate has spiked due to its open-door policy toward migrants, a false claim he has used to bolster his “zero tolerance” stance on illegal immigration.
“Crime in Germany is up 10% plus (officials do not want to report these crimes) since migrants were accepted. Others countries are even worse. Be smart America!” Trump tweeted.
{mosads}Trump doubled down on the argument one day after he faced widespread backlash from European allies for claiming “crime in Germany is way up” because Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government takes in migrants.
German government statistics for 2017 showed the country had its lowest level of crime in 25 years.
Trump may have been referring to a study showing that crime went up by 10 percent in one German state, but not the country as a whole.
The German Interior Ministry showed the overall crime rate fell 5.1 percent over the previous year, even though there have been attacks by militants purportedly affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as well as highly publicized violent crimes by some migrants.
Crimes committed by Germans and non-Germans were down across the board.
Trump on Tuesday also reiterated his support for the zero tolerance policy, which has resulted in roughly 2,000 children separated from their families who illegally crossed the United States’ southern border.
“We must always arrest people coming into our Country illegally. Of the 12,000 children, 10,000 are being sent by their parents on a very dangerous trip, and only 2000 are with their parents, many of whom have tried to enter our Country illegally on numerous occasions,” he wrote.
Trump in another tweet again claimed that “Democrats are the problem,” even though the child separations are the result of his administration’s enforcement policy and not a law.
“They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13,” Trump wrote. “They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!”