Photo: Alamy
While Americans’ trust in federal intelligence agencies is threadbare at best in 2024, President Trump’s most recent comments about the FBI’s new numbers on crime in the U.S. have certainly seemed to further cast the bureau in an unflattering light.
New FBI data released earlier this spring claimed that homicides in the United States dropped by 13 percent in 2023 and that property crime dipped down by three percent, but for those who are living in blue cities overrun with theft, shoplifting, and smash-and-grabs gangs, many Americans may be feeling like these numbers don’t ring true.
Trump told TIME magazine, “I don’t believe it. No, it’s a lie. It’s fake news.”
The president sparred lightly with TIME reporter Eric Cortellessa, caveating that he didn’t believe these numbers were wrong because local police were incorrect, but rather, because “The FBI fudged the numbers and other people fudged numbers.”
He continued, “There is no way that crime went down over the last year. There’s no way because you have migrant crime. Are they adding migrant crime? Or do they consider that a different form of crime? “
Migrant crime is a new definition of crime that Trump has introduced, and it refers to the direct link between the millions of unvetted illegal migrants who have crossed the border over the past three years and the uptick in crimes related to their arrival.
Two high-profile murders linked to such a phenomenon are the murder of Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student, by a Venezuelan illegal migrant, and Ruby Garcia, who was murdered by a man illegally in the U.S. from Mexico.
President Trump has been a vocal opponent of Joe Biden’s open border policies, and in March, he vowed, “Laken Riley would be alive today if Joe Biden had not willfully and maliciously eviscerated the borders of the United States and set loose thousands and thousands of dangerous criminals into our country. To her family tonight I promise you, I will demand JUSTICE FOR LAKEN.”
