Fact Checking Executive Orders

In just a few short weeks our new President has put forth a large collection of executive orders ranging from the mundane to the inflammatory. Today I'd like to recap three of the most recent orders and do a little fact checking on our President's priorities. I've created a synopsis page for all executive orders here for those who are interested. The particular orders I plan to cover today are as follows:

1) Presidential Executive Order on a Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety
2) Presidential Executive Order on Preventing Violence Against Federal, State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement Officers
3) Presidential Executive Order on Enforcing Federal Law with Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking

All three of these orders cover topics that should absolutely be a concern of our Federal government. They cover crime reduction, protection of law enforcement, and stopping transnational crime organizations (mafia/cartels) respectively. My dispute with respect to these executive orders is not intent but rather necessity. For some history and facts about executive orders see here. Below I will take a closer look at the three listed executive orders and the facts that may, or may not, have triggered them.

1) Presidential Executive Order on a Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety
This short executive order establishes a "Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety" administered by the Attorney General. The goal is to reduce crime in America, but then isn't that always our goal? This particular order, however, identifies 3 areas to specifically target. They are: illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and violent crime.

Illegal Immigration:
I've already touched briefly on the fact that most illegal immigrants are not, in fact, criminals other than the sole fact of them being present in our country without authorization. But here are some statistics to back things up. I've taken my data from the Homeland Security website on Immigration Data and Statistics. A particular report of interest is the Annual Report on Immigration Enforcement Actions 2014 (published January 2016). Looking at these reports you can find statistics related to the number of people deported from the US who had previous criminal convictions. These numbers have fallen dramatically in the last few years, from 48% in 2012 to 45% in 2013 and finally to just 40% in 2014. However, on closer inspection you will find that of those deported who had previous criminal convictions roughly 31% (2014) of those convictions were for immigration issues. That means that, in 2014, the US deported a little over 100,000 people who had previous criminal convictions not related to immigration. The statistics unfortunately did not separate out violent crimes but did separate some of the most common offenses. Interestingly, dangerous drugs (27,581) had only marginally more convictions than criminal traffic offenses (23,754). To sum up all of these numbers, in 2014 only 27% of those deported had prior criminal convictions that were not related to immigration. As a comparison approximately 25% of US adult citizens have a criminal record. This means that the statistic tracks approximately evenly between citizens and non-citizens suggesting that there is no need to focus specific attention on crimes by illegal immigrants.

Drug Trafficking:
The infamous War on Drugs has been around since the 70s and it is fair to say that this area receives plenty of attention outside of the President's executive order. The reality is that the fight against drugs has stabilized in most areas and in some areas improved dramatically in the last several years. Here are some statistics from the DEA website:

Arrests- have been approximately stable since 2002. Yearly arrests have fluctuated between 28,000 and 32,000. This is down from a high of 41,296 in 1999.
Drug Seizures-
     Cocaine- 33,770 kg in 2014 which is an increase from 2013 but still down significantly from the peak of 118,128 kg in 2005
     Heroin- has been rising sporadically since the mid 90s but has been stable at around 1,000 kg a year since 2011
     Marijuana- has dropped dramatically in the last several years. This may be due to legalization is some states as well as an increase in the acceptance of medical marijuana programs nation wide
     Methamphetamine- rose steadily to a peak in 2012 of 4,813 kg. In the last 2 years the numbers have dropped significantly with seizure of only 2,946 kg in 2014
     Hallucinogens- this area has seen the most radical drop off. From a peak of over 29 million doses in 2000 there were less than 50,000 doses seized in 2014
Drug related deaths- in 2014 there were 49,714 drug induced deaths. This includes both prescription and illegal substances. This is up from 38,329 in 2010. The rise in deaths seems to be specifically linked to Cocaine and Heroin which have also seen increases in seizures in the last few years. (Data available here and here)

Do we have a drug problem? Yes. Are we handling that problem adequately? I would say yes. Drug consumption and, unfortunately, deaths are always going to be a problem. Our government already spends substantial time and money on arrests, seizures, and rehabilitation programs. While it may not be getting better I would deem our drug trafficking situation stable and not in need of special Presidential attention.

Violent Crime:
According to the FBI website "2015 Crime in the United States" ALL crime statistics were down in 2015 compared to 2006, some of them significantly. While violent crimes were up between the 2014 and 2015 statistics they were down in both the 5 and 10 year categories with the 10 year category being down 16.5% Looking at the numbers by year you can see the number of violent crimes decreasing even as our population increases further emphasizing the falling rates of violent crime. Instances of rape are the only place this trend may be overthrown. As the government transitions from a legacy to a revised definition of rape we have seen an increase in rape rates however the statistics for the revised definition only go back to 2013 and so it is difficult to determine a true trend at this time.

2) Presidential Executive Order on Preventing Violence Against Federal, State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement Officers
Law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day in order to protect the general public. It is inherently an unsafe job as you deal with some of the worst that society has to offer. That being said, what is the state of crime against law enforcement in our country? The FBI website has some data on this subject in particular Table 70 will be my reference for this section. This table, however, lacks two statistics that I will provide below based on the numbers available within the table. While it shows the raw number of officers assaulted and what percent of assaults resulted in injury it does not show what percent of officers overall were assaulted or what percent of officers were injured relative to the overall sampling. Here is that data:

With this data you can see that the percentage of assaults on officers seems to be decreasing slowly (from 11.9 to 9.3) while the percent of injuries by assault seems to be holding steady at about 3%. There is nothing to suggest that assaults against police officers are on the rise to make this an urgent Presidential matter.

3) Presidential Executive Order on Enforcing Federal Law with Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking
The FBI website has an entire section devoted to organized crime. This is such a broad category that it was difficult for me to find any relevant statistics to use in an analysis. However, as part of the executive order the President blames cartels on a resurgence of deadly drug abuse and violent crime, both of which I have provided facts for in previous sections of this post. In terms of human trafficking the executive order states that it "risks becoming a humanitarian crisis." This particular phrasing suggests that it may become but is not currently a humanitarian crisis which I would vehemently disagree with. For some statistics on human trafficking in the US see here. Although we do have laws and systems in place to deal with these sorts of crimes this is one area that I will give the President the benefit of the doubt and say that there is a chance that we need more attention in this area.



As stated before, none of these executive orders is asking for our government to take action in an objectionable way. All of these subjects are important aspects of our Federal enforcement. However, it seems to be over blowing the situation to issue an executive order over issues that are already well covered through our normal executive and legislative process. Considering the severe criticism past Presidents have come under for the use of executive orders we must consider why our current President felt it was justified/necessary to issue executive orders so soon after entering office instead of waiting to gain greater insight into the processes already in place. Is he trying to increase the power of his position? Draw attention away from other issues? Or maybe he's just enjoying the power of making proclamations to the American public.