On Face the Nation Sunday, Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida made an argument that contained its own contradiction. In one part of the segment he urged against deporting Haitians who hold Temporary Protected Status, calling Haiti a failed state to which it would be a mistake to send people back. In another he described the situation at the southern line in three words: "The borders are now closed" [1].
The border is not closed. In May, the most recent month for which the government has released figures, the Border Patrol recorded nearly 10,000 apprehensions of people crossing between ports of entry - about 9,998, in fact, up 64 percent from January [2]. The ports of entry themselves, where lawful trade and travel move, operate every day. A place that processes tens of thousands of crossings and admissions a month is quiet by recent standards; it is not closed.
The accurate version of the claim is available and it is genuinely striking. Crossings are at or near their lowest levels in the comparable record - a real, sharp decline worth stating without hedging. "Historically low" is true. "Closed" is a different word that means a different thing, and the difference is not cosmetic. A border that is low is a border still being crossed and still being managed; a border that is "closed" is a solved problem, and a solved problem is the argument for ending the emergency measures and humanitarian protections built for an unsolved one.
That is what makes the word choice matter in Gimenez's own mouth. The premise that the crisis is over - that the border is shut - is precisely the premise being used to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, the outcome he spent the rest of the interview arguing against [1]. He was defending people whose protection depends on the honest version of the numbers: low, managed, open, not closed. The overstatement he reached for to describe the administration's success is the same overstatement that undercuts the case he came on television to make.
