Economist Paul Krugman argued that one of Donald Trump ’s central campaign promises — a sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants — is starting to fall apart.

In his latest Substack newsletter , Krugman wrote it’s because Trump’s push for “mass deportations and/or imprisonment” is “based on a lie,” which is the claim the U.S. is experiencing a massive crime wave driven by immigrants.

“It seems to me that the lie is beginning to unravel as it becomes clear that ICE is having a really hard time finding violent immigrants to arrest,” he said.

Rounding up undocumented criminals is proving to be “hard work” because they simply don’t exist in the large numbers Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed, he added.

Krugman, who won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences,

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