SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — With Election Day around the corner, the rhetoric is on. Former President Donald Trump is using fear as a major tactic in his bid for the White House, describing major cities as crime-infested and overrun by what he calls “criminal immigrants.”

“You can’t cross the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get robbed, you get raped,” former President Donald Trump said on the campaign trail.

The former president claimed that since he left office, there has been a spate of “bloodshed, mayhem and violent crime”.

Here are the facts.

FBI data shows violent crime fell nationally in 2023 for the second year in a row, and a Justice Department study of 88 cities showed a 17 percent drop in crime in the first half of this year, on pace for another record lows.

Locally, San Diego is ranked as one of the safest large cities in America, according to US News and World Report. Crime is down 13%, sexual assault is down 17%, gang crime is down 12%, and even overall property crime rates are down 3%.

Team 10 talked extensively about crime in the county with Escondido Police Chief Ed Varso.

“The most recent data we have and collected at the county level shows that overall crime in Escondido is down 14 percent. Every single one of our crime categories, whether it’s property crime or violent crime, is currently down,” says Varso.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, crime rates have risen slightly.

“So crime today is lower than it has been in the last 30 years,” says Varso.

Chief Varso worries that property crimes may be underreported, especially shoplifting and other retail crimes, because business owners are exasperated by California laws that don’t allow police to arrest people for petty theft.

But violent crimes are another story.

“Violent crime is really at historic lows for Escondido,” says Varso.

The former president also rails against what he calls “migrant crime,” claiming the United States has become a “trash bin for the world.”

There is no separate category for immigrant crime, but here are three data points.

Trump is correct that both the number of immigrants entering the country and the number of immigrants stopped at the border with criminal records in their country of origin have increased dramatically during the Biden-Harris administration.

However, a 2023 Stanford study concludes that immigrants who arrive in the US are 60% less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States. And here in San Diego County, Escondido’s police chief says immigrant crime isn’t a thing.

“Anecdotally, I would tell you that I haven’t had anyone report to me the sense that there is an increase when it comes to an immigrant population,” says Varso.