Happy Friday, Show Mo Facts supporters! In today’s blog post, we’ll evaluate and fact-check a tweet posted by Mark Alford. Alford is the Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 4th Congressional District, representing around 783,000 West Central Missouri residents. Check out the map below to see if Alford will be on your ballot on Tuesday, November 8! If you are not from Alford’s district, make sure to check where your polling location is here and make a plan to vote on election day!
In this tweet, Alford makes several claims attributing fentanyl overdoses and human trafficking to the unfinished wall. Overall, the tweet is claiming that the border wall would solve these social issues.
For two reasons, Missourians must holistically understand the causes of fentanyl poisoning, the causes of human trafficking, and the ability of the border wall to solve these issues. First, solely attributing these social issues to the border prevents Missourians from understanding where the real risks of fentanyl overdoses and human trafficking occur. By cherry-picking information, all residents including men, women, and children are less able to identify where risks for these issues occur in their daily lives. Second, understanding the nature of these problems allows voters from Missouri's 4th Congressional District to judge Alford's truthfulness for themselves.
Claim: Citizens are dying from fentanyl poisoning due to the unfinished border wall
Fact: Multiple ads by members of the GOP have misleadingly reinforced the narrative that Biden needs to finish the wall because people crossing the border illegally are responsible for the influx of fentanyl. These narratives utilize anti-immigrant rhetoric while ignoring that approximately 80 percent of fentanyl drug traffickers are US citizens, not illegal immigrants. This would explain why 80 percent of illegal fentanyl is also brought to the US through legal ports of entry, not through vast open borders. Therefore, if Alford really wanted to reduce the amount of fentanyl entering the US from the border, he would invest in ports of entry rather than the wall.
Chart Describing the Most Frequent Fentanyl Smugglers by Demographics
To protect Missourians from fentanyl poisoning, Alford should instead address the root of the problem by helping stem addiction, reducing demand for fentanyl, and informing citizens of the addictive qualities of fentanyl prior to prescription.
Claim: Citizens are dying from human trafficking due to the unfinished border wall
Fact: Alford’s claim refers back to one of Trump’s previous arguments that the wall was necessary because much of human trafficking came from the southern border; however, there is no evidence that this is true.
Human trafficking is defined as “the use of force fraud, coercion against another person to perform labor, services, or commercial sex acts.” It sometimes goes hand-in-hand with human smuggling — the transportation of people illegally across borders — but often does not. An analysis by the Washington Post found that the distribution of human trafficking suspects has no correlation to proximity to the Mexico border and that a majority of victims of human trafficking are US citizens, not foreign nationals being smuggled in.
Chart Describing Where Human Trafficking Incidents Are Most Likely to Occur
Individuals who are most at risk for human trafficking are American teenage girls, young women, and homeless youths who are manipulated by seemingly harmless gang-involved traffickers at schools, malls, and trolley stops. Alford fails to warn Missourians of the real locations and scenarios where human trafficking may be of risk to us while advancing his own agenda.
Claim: Finishing the border wall will decrease deaths from fentanyl poisoning and human trafficking
Fact: As we have discussed, deaths due to fentanyl and human trafficking cannot solely be attributed to an “open” border wall. Therefore, the border wall would be insufficient to solve the larger problems at hand.
Many experts question the ability of the wall to solve these problems. For example, since most fentanyl comes enters the US through legal ports, the Drug Enforcement Administration has asserted that the border wall would be an ineffective solution. Furthermore, since most human trafficking in the US occurs within the US, rather than across the border, human trafficking experts argue that the wall would not be a sufficient solution to the problem.
In this tweet, Alford attributes fentanyl poisoning and human trafficking to the border wall to advocate for the border policies he supports. However, in Alford’s attempt to establish a need for the border wall, he risks Missourians’ safety by failing to inform us of where real risks for fentanyl poisoning and human trafficking occur. Because Alford is cherry-picking information to advance his claims at the risk of Missourians’ safety, we rate this ad HIGH on our Pants on Fire O-Meter.
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