The Washington Post has a new article up by Tom K. Wong, Gabriel De Roche and Jesus Rojas Venzor that argues “There’s no migrant ‘surge’ at the U.S. southern border” and “here’s the data” to prove it:
For those like Stephen Miller who want to talk about “crisis” to score political points, let’s talk data. We can start with my new @washingtonpost @monkeycageblog piece here: “There’s no migrant ‘surge’ at the U.S. southern border. Here’s the data” https://t.co/BERPTu13ib
— Tom K. Wong (@TomWongPhD) March 23, 2021
Except the data shows there’s a migrant surge at the U.S. southern border. See the blue line in *their* data for 2021? It’s above the line for previous years:
The Washington Post publishes a piece arguing that there is no surge of migrants at the border, it's the usual "seasonal increase." They accompany this with a graphic showing that the number of migrants encountered at the border is well above previous years? ht: @CharlesFLehman pic.twitter.com/AptA5kENlY
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) March 23, 2021
And as the Manhattan Institute’s Charles Fain Lehman points out, that gap between the two lines is the surge:
This article points out that there's a standard pattern of migration between different months in the same year. That's true — but the migrant "surge" is measured between the same month in different years. https://t.co/hTtOTsB9HX
— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) March 23, 2021
It's really unclear what Wong and co. are trying to argue: that the surge is a product of COVID restrictions (sure), that Biden hasn't caused the surge (reasonable to debate), or that there is no surge (seems demonstrably wrong). pic.twitter.com/9U0Ua25JII
— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) March 23, 2021
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And their “pent-up demand” theory doesn’t make sense, too:
I'm also not sure the "pent-up demand" theory makes sense when illegal immigration returned to pre-COVID levels by July.
— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) March 23, 2021
Anyway, we are on track for the most apprehensions in the past decade! This February substantially outpaced the historical February! It's reasonable to debate about *why* that's happening, but not to say it isn't happening.
— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) March 23, 2021
But, wait. It gets better. In a back-and-forth with Lehman, Wong is arguing that the number of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. is indeed at “historic levels,” but it’s not a surge:
No one, as far as I am aware, is arguing that the numbers are not rising, and to historic levels at that. However, I imagine retailers would be hard pressed to call a seasonal increase in Christmas sales a "surge" if sales did not outpace previous years
— Tom K. Wong (@TomWongPhD) March 23, 2021
So we agree that an increase that significantly outpaced previous years is a "surge"?
— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) March 23, 2021
If that were true, but we don't see this for Jan-Feb in 2021 relative to 2019 (excluding 2020 because of the pandemic)
— Tom K. Wong (@TomWongPhD) March 23, 2021
a) I don't see a reason to exclude 2020 in measuring a migration surge, esp. when that measurement matters for the human costs of managing aforementioned surge. But b) people also characterized the 2019 wave as a surge, compared to the historical baseline. Was that inaccurate?
— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) March 23, 2021
If a global pandemic is not a significant enough exogenous shock, then there's no point to continuing this conversation on Twitter. You can always email me. And yes, there was a "surge" in 2019 under the Trump administration, the remnants of which are being addressed now. Bye
— Tom K. Wong (@TomWongPhD) March 23, 2021
When I try to understand if there was a surge, I usually start with "are more people coming in than usual." If your baseline for usual is 2019, that's fine, but it seems silly to exclude all the other data we have from before 2019.
— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) March 23, 2021
LOL.
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