Nielsen Justifies Family Separation by Pointing to Increase in Fraud. But the Data Is Very Limited.

“I’m sad to say that from October 2017 to this February, we have seen a staggering 315 percent increase in illegal aliens fraudulently using children to pose as family units to gain entry into this country.”

This needs context.

Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, suggested in two appearances on Monday that the Trump administration policy to separate children from their parents at the border was justified, in part, to prevent smugglers from posing as families to take advantage of a “get-out-of-jail-free card.”

But characterizing the increase of this type of fraud as “staggering” is misleading. The data reflects a period of less than two years, making it difficult to draw a meaningful historical comparison. And the instances of fraud make up less than 1 percent of families apprehended at the border.

The numbers Nielsen cites are correct. Katie Waldman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, told The New York Times that there were 46 cases of fraudulent family claims in the 2017 fiscal year, which began in October 2016 and ended in September 2017. In just the first five months of fiscal 2018, there were 191 cases — a 315 percent increase.

But those instances of family fraud are a tiny fraction of the total number of families apprehended at the southwestern border: 0.06 percent of nearly 76,000 families in fiscal 2017 and 0.6 percent of 31,000 families apprehended in the first five months of fiscal 2018.

Further, Waldman said the department had only recently begun compiling family-fraud data, so a comparison with earlier administrations’ data would not yet be possible.