Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Tuesday and it's the 1st of December. I'm Naila Boodoo. Here's how we're making you smarter today. A bipartisan group of senators is trying to pass yet another stimulus package.

Plus, the NFL's COVID crisis. But first, today's one big thing, shattering stereotypes of American border towns.

The U.S. Mexico border is often described as a dangerous place by some politicians, including President Trump.

The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and

financial well-being of all America.

But let's have a reality check here because data from the FBI shows that U.S.

border cities are actually some of the safest in the country.

Russell Contreras is Axios' race and justice reporter and has been looking at

the numbers. Russell, what did your analysis of the FBI data tell you?

Well, looking at 2019 numbers, I found that Border Cities, 11 of them, had lower crime rates

than the national average. For many years now they've had lower rates of

violent crime per 100,000 residents than many cities the same size. For

example a city like El Paso is roughly around the same size of Memphis, Tennessee.

El Paso has a violent crime rate of 353.

Memphis has a violent crime rate of 1,901.

So the cities are around the same size.

They have almost the same poverty rate,

but a very different story when we're looking at violent crime.

So you're saying just to be clear that Memphis has almost five times the amount of violent crime. So you're saying just to be clear that Memphis has almost five times the amount of violent

crime that El Paso has.

Exactly.

You also spoke with some of the mayors of these cities, Russ.

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