Crime Drop in Venezuela Does Not Prove Trump’s Claim the Country Is Sending Criminals to U.S.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino. Anyone who has heard a speech by former President Donald Trump in the last few years has certainly heard his unsubstantiated claim that countries around the world are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and sending those people to the U.S. Trump has offered scant support for this claim, but in virtually all of his recent speeches, he has been citing a reported drop in crime in Venezuela as evidence that the economically and politically beleaguered country is sending its criminals to the U.S. Experts in and out of Venezuela told us there is no evidence to back up Trump’s claim. Reported crime is trending down in Venezuela — though not nearly as dramatically as Trump claims — but crime experts in the country say there are numerous reasons for that and they have nothing to do with sending criminals to the U.S. Nonetheless, it’s hard to prove a negative, and those who follow Venezuelan politics say such a tactic is not beyond Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has been in power since 2013 and is seeking another six-year term. The FBI acknowledges some Venezuelan criminals have migrated to the...