It was one of those statements that just seems impossible — because it is.
Last Sunday at a campaign rally in Greeley, Colorado, Donald Trump made an extraordinary claim regarding Hillary Clinton.
“But she wants open borders,” he said. “She wants open borders. We could have 600 million people pour into our country. Think of it. Once you have open borders like that, you don’t have a country anymore.”
We initially thought that he simply tripped over his tongue. But, then he said it again, only this time upping the ante. “She wants to let people just pour in,” he said at a rally in Albuquerque. “You could have 650 million people pour in and we do nothing about it. Think of it. That’s what could happen. You triple the size of our country in one week.”
Trump was probably riffing off a WikiLeaks dump that purported to contain remarks Clinton made in 2013 in a paid speech to a Brazilian bank.
In the speech she allegedly said: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, sometime in the future with energy that’s as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.”
Clinton has said the comment itself was a reference not to open borders for people, but for energy trading.
But even if Trump is right about opening the borders, his numbers seem implausible. By a lot.
There is no doubt, if all the borders in the Western Hemisphere were suddenly to be removed by creating a common market with completely open borders, the US population would grow significantly — probably by millions. But, since the entire population of Canada and Latin America (minus Puerto Rico which is already part of the US) totals about 665 million people, almost every person south and north of the border would have to want to move to the US in order for Trump’s claim to be correct.
