Dissecting the immigration chart Trump says saved his life
During former President Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, he displayed a graph he described as the "chart that saved my life." It's the same chart that was displayed behind Trump when shots rang out during his attempted assassination on July 13.
Trump claimed the chart shows how his administration successfully controlled immigration at the southern border and how President Joe Biden reversed some of the progress made during his presidency.
"Less than four years ago, I handed this administration the strongest border in American history, but you can see on the chart that saved my life, that was the chart that saved my life, I said look at it. I'm proud of it. I think it's one of the greatest – it was done by the border patrol. One of the greatest charts I've ever seen," he said during his speech.
Despite his claim that the chart "was done by the border patrol," analysis by ABC News found that the original version originated from Sen. Ron Johnson's office.
During a July 14 interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, Sen. Johnson said his office has been developing the chart since 2014 and that he showed it to Trump during a flight to Green Bay ahead of a rally.
"I showed that to him on the plane ride up to the Green Bay rally, he liked it. Turned it over to his staff ... they made a few changes in terms of a few graphics on that but he used it that day. He's been using it ever since I am happy to have been of service there," Johnson said.
A spokesperson for Sen. Johnson confirmed that the original chart supplied to Trump is the one posted on the senator's website.
The chart purports to show migrant encounter numbers at the southern border.
One of the most glaring inaccuracies it displays is it appears to claim Trump left office sometime in April 2020, when encounters at the border were significantly low, with arrows pointing to that low point and labeling it as the "lowest illegal immigration in recorded history."
However, Trump didn't leave office until January 2021 and, as his altered chart shows, encounters were rising in the months after April 2020, through the November presidential election during his presidency. The claim that April saw the lowest rates of immigration is also false; in fact, it wasn't even the lowest point of the Trump administration, as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, American Immigration Council's policy director, pointed out.
"As this chart shows … the border was getting increasingly out of control in the months before the election in 2020. By December of 2020, border apprehensions were the highest level for December since 1999, and within days after President Biden taking office, the Mexican governor of the state of Tamaulipas told DHS that they could no longer expel Central American families with children under the age of seven across the border in south Texas," Reichlin-Melnich told ABC News.
Customs and Border Protection data shows border patrol made 11,127 apprehensions in April 2017. Border Patrol's yearly apprehension numbers date back to 1925, with the lowest recorded number being 10,319 (1934).
The chart also makes no mention of the unprecedented impact that COVID-19 had on global migration routes. While Trump touts low apprehension numbers in April 2020, the chart fails to point out that is when traveling routes shut down due to the pandemic.
The Migration Policy Institute recorded more than 43,000 travel measures taken by countries between January and May 2020 in response to the pandemic, which they claim was responsible for a "near-complete halt to all forms of global mobility early in 2020, due to a combination of border restrictions imposed by countries around the world."
In 2019, Trump instituted a policy called "Migration Protection Protocol" most commonly referred to as "Remain In Mexico." The policy required some asylum-seekers to be sent back to Mexico during immigration proceedings. Human rights advocates denounced the policy, saying it led to large migrant encampments on the Mexico side of the border. Humanitarian workers documented significant rates of violent crime and extortion migrants faced while waiting in camps.
While Trump and his supporters claim the policy was effective in reducing illegal crossings, his own chart shows a significant spike in encounters following its implementation.
In March 2020, Trump implemented a policy known as Title 42, which allowed the government to quickly expel migrants at the border instead of allowing them to seek asylum, citing concerns about the possible spread of COVID-19. Immigration advocates who opposed the policy said it incentivized migrants to attempt to cross into the United States more frequently and to take more dangerous routes into the country.
CBP data, obtained by ABC News at the time, showed a high level of repeat border crossings under Title 42.
The Biden administration lifted the policy in May 2023.
While the chart appeared to show the number of encounters and apprehensions at the border over the course of 12 years, it does not make clear that the figures include migrants who may have been expelled or returned to their own country or those who were admitted into the country through legal pathways after being apprehended by border patrol.
CBP data shows that in the year since Title 42 was rescinded, more than 742,000 people were removed from the country, more than the total of removals and returns since fiscal year 2010.
Several high-ranking border patrol agents spoke with ABC News, who asked that their names note be used, also pointed out that the numbers on the chart are generalizations and don't take into account the intricacies of what they face in the field. Agents said the numbers lacked context and understanding of what they were facing in previous years.
Agents also told ABC News that while migrant encounters have grown during the Biden administration, straining resources and manpower, rates have recently gone down.
In June, encounters at the southern border continued to drop for the fourth month straight, newly released numbers show.
Border patrol agents made roughly 83,536 migrant apprehensions in between ports of entry at the southern border, the lowest since January 2021 (75,316).
CBP recorded 130,419 encounters along the southern border overall, a roughly 40,000 drop since May. That overall number includes migrants who made appointments at ports of entry, others seeking entry through lawful pathways established by the Biden administration.
On June 4, President Biden introduced a new rule that restricts access to asylum in between ports of entry when migrant encounters reach more than 2,500 for seven consecutive days.
The number of encounters at the Southwest border have decreased by more than 50% since the new rule went into effect, according to CBP.
The chart also largely ignored migrants who had been released under President Trump. A recent CATO analysis found that the Trump administration released more than 700,000 migrants pending their immigration proceedings during the final two years of Trump's term – the majority of migrant encounters over that period.
"Look at what happened after I left. They took over our country. We ended all catch and release, we shut down asylum fraud, we stopped human trafficking, and forged historic agreements to keep illegal aliens on foreign soil, we want them to stay on their soil," President Trump said during his speech.
ABC News has reached out to CBP and the Trump campaign for comment.
