Fact check: Debunking Trump’s October lying spree about immigration
CNN
Here is a fact check of 28 distinct false claims about immigration Trump has made in the last two weeks alone.
Former President Donald Trump is lying about a whole bunch of topics in the final month of the presidential election. But he is lying most frequently, by far, about immigration. Trump’s October rally speeches and interviews have featured a dizzying barrage of false claims on the subject – about immigrants and crime, about Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on immigration policy, about Trump’s own record on immigration policy and about how foreign countries are supposedly “dumping” their most unwanted citizens into the US. These claims range from exaggerations to wholly fictional tales. Here is a fact check of at least 28 distinct false claims he has made about immigration in the last two weeks alone, some of which he has repeated over and over. Harris’ border role: Trump, criticizing Harris, repeatedly claimed that President Joe Biden made her “border czar” and said that “she was in charge of the border.” Biden never made Harris “border czar,” a label the White House has always emphasized is inaccurate, and never put her in charge of border security, a responsibility of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. In reality, Biden gave Harris a more limited immigration-related assignment in 2021, asking her to lead diplomacy with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an attempt to address the conditions that prompted their citizens to try to migrate to the United States. Harris’ border visits: Trump, speaking about Harris and the border, repeated his false claim that “she never even went there.” Harris did go to the border as vice president, in Texas in mid-2021 and then again in Arizona last month; many Republicans had criticized Harris prior to the 2021 visit for not having gone, and some later argued that she didn’t go frequently enough, but the claim that she “never” went has not been true for more than three years. Harris’ approach to the border: Trump falsely claimed of Harris: “She was saying the other day, ‘Yes, oh yes, we want to have a border.’ The first time she ever said it. She almost threw up when she said it.” This is nonsense; Harris has never said the US shouldn’t have a border, and it’s not even true that “the other day” was the first time she said the US should have a secure border. For example, she said in a television appearance while running for president in 2019: “We have to have a secure border. But I am in favor of saying that we are not going to treat people who are undocumented and cross the border as criminals.”
After recent burglaries at homes of professional athletes – including Kansas City Chiefs stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce – the NFL and NBA have issued security memos to teams and players warning that “organized and skilled groups” are increasingly targeting players’ residences for such crimes.