Luis Mancheno @LuisFMancheno Latinx, gay, immigrant, refugee, lawyer, femme

Like many Americans, I had the painful opportunity to watch President Trump’s national address vouching for the funding of his wall last night. As expected, his speech was filled with deceit and narratives painting our country as invaded, but nothing can be further from the truth. I am a queer refugee who fled to the United States to gain freedom for my identity, and now as a practicing immigration lawyer, I am a firm believer that immigration should be considered a queer issue. As in the case of the asylum seekers who arrived in Tijuana with the caravan in November, people at our southern border include hundreds of our fellow LGBTQ+ siblings who fled from death and persecution in their home countries and are seeking safety in ours. When misinformation disseminates, such as Trump’s speech, it is our duty as members of the LGBTQ+ community to arm ourselves with information so we can fact-check nonsense like this. So, here are a few call-outs.

Immigration at our southern border is not a “security crisis”

In his speech, President Trump referred to the border as a “humanitarian and security crisis.” It is important to clarify that the number of people crossing our southern border is at a record low compared to previous years of the past decade. There is no denial that there was a spike of crossings in October this past year, but these crossings were likely connected to Trump’s policy to curtail the admission of asylum seekers at the ports of entry.

The idea that our country is being invaded and that thousands of people are flooding our southern border every day is simply false, a fear-mongering tacticthat Trump has successfully used since his presidential campaign to get Americans to follow him.