Up to date or outdated? The Trump administration is taking credit for a drop in illegal border crossings.
PolitiFact Wisconsin tries to untangle the numbers.
U.S. border security has been a top campaign promise for the Trump-Pence team.
Vice President Mike Pence talked about it during a stop in Milwaukee last month. He claimed: "Illegal crossings at our southern border have been cut by over 40 percent."
40 percent is a big drop but is accurate? PolitiFact Wisconsin looked at 2017 numbers.
According to the Department of Homeland Security the U.S. Border Patrol caught 303,916 people crossing the southern border, down from 408,870 in 2016. That's a drop of 25.6 percent.
"He's stating it as this is the number as of today. But everything that they pointed us to was outdated information," said Greg Borowski at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
PolitiFact Wisconsin says the 40 percent drop refers to a one month drop by comparing January of 2017 to February of 2018.
But the most recent month to month in 2018 shows a different pattern.
"The trend in the past few months has been the reverse of what Vice President Pence cited here," said Borowski. "The numbers have actually been increasing and not decreasing and that's true no matter how you look at it."
PolitiFact Wisconsin rated Pence's claim False.
