Fact check: Debunking Trump’s October lying spree about immigration

By Daniel Dale, CNN

Washington (CNN) — 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.”

Harris, migrants and criminals: Trump again falsely described a recently released set of statistics about immigrants in the US with homicide convictions, claiming again that the figures are specifically about people who entered the country during the Biden-Harris administration: “It came out that 13,099 were let in, during their administration – they tried to say longer, wrong: over the last three-and-a-half years – 13,000-plus people came in: murderers.”

In reality, the Department of Homeland Security and independent experts have noted that these figures are about people who entered the country over decades, including during Trump’s own administration, not just under Biden and Harris. You can read more here.

The people on the ICE non-detained list: Trump repeated his false claim that “under Kamala Harris, 13,099 illegal alien convicted murderers are roaming free in the United States.” The Department of Homeland Security has made clear that this figure includes people who are currently incarcerated in federal, state and local prisons and jails; they are on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement “non-detained” list because they aren’t in the custody of immigration authorities in particular. You can read more here.

A Biden immigration bill and citizenship: Trump denounced an unspecified immigration bill from the Biden administration, falsely claiming “it would have allowed millions of people to become citizens right away.” The bill Biden proposed to Congress at the beginning of his administration in 2021 would have offered a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants, but over eight years. And the bipartisan 2024 border bill that Trump helped to kill offered a pathway to citizenship for tens of thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan who arrived in the US with temporary status in the wake of the US withdrawal in 2021, but that’s not “millions,” and, again, it wouldn’t have made them citizens immediately.

Migration and Black unemployment: Trump, arguing that undocumented immigrants are taking the jobs of Black and Hispanic Americans, falsely claimed Saturday of African Americans: “Their unemployment rate is through the roof. Wait ‘til you hear the numbers.” The Black or African American unemployment rate declined in September, to 5.7%. That is only a bit higher than the lowest rate of the Trump presidency, 5.3%, in two months of 2019. It’s also lower than the pre-pandemic February 2020 rate, also under Trump, of 6.1%.

FEMA and migrants: Trump falsely claimed of the Federal Emergency Management Agency: “They have no money. You know where they gave the money? To illegal immigrants coming in.” He also said, “They spent all their funds; they have no funds to take care…”

This is false in two ways. FEMA does have money for the immediate responses to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, though a string of recent disasters has depleted its disaster relief fund; the fund had about $11 billion remaining as of Wednesday. And FEMA did not give all of its disaster relief money to undocumented people; rather, as mandated by Congress, FEMA also administers an entirely separate pool of money for sheltering migrants.

An immigration chart and migration levels: Trump repeatedly made his false claim that his favorite chart about migration numbers at the southern border – which he had fortunately turned his head to look at when a gunman tried to kill him at a campaign rally in July – has an arrow pointing to “the day I left office,” which, he said, had the lowest level of border crossings “in the recorded history of our country.”

The chart doesn’t show that. In fact, the arrow actually points to April 2020, when Trump still had more than eight months left in his term and global migration had slowed to a trickle because of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. After hitting a roughly three-year low (not an all-time low) in April 2020, migration numbers at the southern border increased each month through the end of Trump’s term.

The number of migrants: Trump, speaking about migration, repeated his false claim that “21 million people came in over the last three years, with them.” Through August, the country had recorded about 10.3 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during the Biden-Harris administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country; even adding in so-called “gotaways” who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2 million, there’s no way the total is “21 million.”

The border wall: Trump repeated his false claim that he built “571 miles of wall” on the southern border. That’s a significant exaggeration; official government data shows 458 miles were built under Trump – including both wall built where no barriers had existed before and wall built to replace previous barriers.

Trump’s wall promises: Trump made the false claim about having built “571 miles of wall,” then added an additional false claim that the number of miles he had wanted to add to the wall, before the Biden administration halted construction, was “much more than I said I was going to build.” He said, “I was going to add 200 miles more. I didn’t promise to do that, but I thought it would be good.” In reality, when he ran for president in 2015 and 2016, Trump regularly said “we need” 1,000 miles of wall; adding 200 miles to the 458 miles that were built, or even adding the 280 miles the federal government said were planned for construction but not yet built when Trump left office, would be less than he had spoken about building.

Mexico and the wall: Trump, who emphasized during his 2016 campaign that Mexico would pay for the wall, falsely claimed: “Mexico did pay for it.” He added, “You know, they gave us thousands and thousands of soldiers. They paid more.”

Mexico did not pay for the border wall, which was funded solely with billions of dollars in US government funds; the Trump administration directed roughly $16 billion toward the project (though not all of it was spent). While Mexico did deploy thousands of security personnel to thwart migrants heading to the US, Mexico paying for this initiative simply isn’t the same as Mexico paying for the wall.

Immigration judges and other countries: Trump, criticizing the fact that asylum seekers who arrive at the border have access to a US legal process before they are deported, falsely claimed that “No other country has judges at the border.” In reality, the US is far from the only country to let asylum seekers make their case before judges or legal tribunals.

“This statement is patently false,” James Hathaway, then a law professor and Director of the Program in Refugee and Asylum Law at the University of Michigan, told this reporter during Trump’s presidency in response to a previous version of Trump’s claim. “It is completely routine in other countries that, like the U.S., have signed the UN refugee treaties for asylum-seekers to have access to the domestic legal system to make a protection claim (and to be allowed in while the claim is pending).”

The number of US immigration judges: Trump falsely claimed, “We have thousands of judges at the border.” The US had 725 immigration judges nationwide as of the first quarter of the 2024 fiscal year.

Trump’s comments about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, “eating the pets”: Asked at a Univision town hall if he really believes Haitian immigrants in Springfield are eating other residents’ pets, Trump said, “This was just reported. I was just saying what was reported; that’s been reported – and eating other things, too, that they’re not supposed to be. But this is – all I do is report.” He added, “That’s been in the newspapers and reported pretty broadly.”

It has not actually been broadly reported that immigrants in Springfield are eating other residents’ pets. In fact, no news outlet has reported any proof of this having actually happened; Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, acknowledged after promoting such claims in September that although he had heard the claims from his constituents, “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.” And when Trump claimed at the presidential debate in September that “in Springfield, they’re eating the dogs…they’re eating the cats….they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he did not say he was merely citing reports he had seen.

The legal status of immigrants in Springfield: Trump falsely claimed, “They just dropped 30,000 illegal aliens in Springfield, Ohio.”

This is false in more than one way. While we don’t know the immigration status of each and every Haitian immigrant in Springfield, the community is, on the whole, in the country lawfully. The Springfield city website says, “YES, Haitian immigrants are here legally, under the Immigration Parole Program. Once here, immigrants are then eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).” Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wrote in a New York Times op-ed about Springfield in September that the Haitian immigrants “are there legally” and that, as a Trump-Vance supporter, he is “saddened” by the candidates’ disparagement of “the legal migrants living in Springfield.”

Second, nobody “dropped” the immigrants in Springfield; the city’s Haitian residents were not sent there by a government resettlement program. Rather, they independently decided to move to the city because of employment opportunities, affordable housing and the presence of a Haitian community, among other factors.

And while there is no official tally of the number of immigrants in Springfield, Trump’s “30,000” figure exceeds local estimates. The website for the city of Springfield says there are an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants in the county that includes Springfield, where the total population is about 138,000. Chris Cook, the county’s health commissioner, said in July that his team estimated the best number was 10,000 to 12,000 Haitian residents in the county.

More about immigrants in Springfield: Trump claimed that immigrants in Springfield are on “probation,” and he added, “Probation is for prisoners.” This is false in two ways.

First, Trump got his terms wrong. Many Haitians came into the country under a Biden-Harris administration parole program – not “probation” – that gives permission to enter the US to vetted participants with US sponsors. And though the word “parole” is most commonly used in the context of criminal prisoners who are let out early on certain conditions, in the context of immigration policy, “parole” does not mean that someone was let out of prison or had ever been in prison.

Rather, as the federal government explains on its website, “The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows the secretary of homeland security to use their discretion to parole any noncitizen applying for admission into the United States temporarily for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” The government has used the parole authority in the past to grant entry to certain people fleeing crises in Cuba, Vietnam, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Lebanon and elsewhere.

Venezuela, prisons and migration: Trump falsely claimed, “In Venezuela, many countries, they’re emptying their prisons into our country.” This is false. Trump has never corroborated this claim about Venezuela, let alone “many countries,” and experts have told CNN, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org that they know of no evidence for it.

“We have no evidence that the Venezuelan government is emptying its prisons or mental health institutions to send them outside the country, in other words, to the U.S. or any other country,” Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, an independent organization that tracks violence in the country, said in an email to CNN in June, after Trump made similar claims.

Venezuela and migrant buses: Adding another colorful story about Venezuela, Trump falsely claimed that “they take the criminal gangs from Caracas off the streets and they bus them into the United States and drop them.” This is false. There is no evidence of Venezuelan authorities somehow busing gang members into the US.

Migrants and “the Congo”: Trump repeated his false claim that “a huge number” of migrants are “coming out of jails in the Congo,” explaining that this was because foreign countries are deliberately “releasing their prison populations into our country.” Trump and his campaign have never been able to provide any proof for this claim about “the Congo,” and both the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo told CNN in March that it is false. Experts on both countries also told CNN in March that they had not seen any evidence of Congolese prisons being emptied, let alone evidence of either country somehow having brought ex-prisoners into the US as Trump has claimed.

The world prison population: Trump repeated his false claim that “the prison population all over the world is down, because they put them in our country.” The recorded global prison population increased from October 2021 to April 2024, from at least about 10.77 million people to at least about 10.99 million people, according to the World Prison Population List compiled by experts in the United Kingdom.

“I do a daily news search to see what’s going on in prisons around the world and have seen absolutely no evidence that any country is emptying its prisons and sending them all to the US,” Helen Fair, co-author of the prison population list and research fellow at the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research at Birkbeck, University of London, said in June, when Trump made a similar claim.

Migrants and mental health facilities: Trump repeated his false claim about large numbers of migrants entering the US from mental health facilities foreign governments had deliberately emptied: “They’re coming in, but they’re also coming in largely, in tremendous numbers, coming in, out of mental institutions; they’re emptying out mental institutions, they’re emptying out insane asylums.” Trump’s own campaign hasn’t been able to substantiate these claims, and experts say they have found no evidence for them.

A gang and Colorado: Trump falsely claimed at a rally in Colorado that a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua is “taking over your state,” suggesting that the city of Aurora has been “conquered” and promising to “liberate Colorado” if elected again.

The gang has members in the state, but it has not come close to taking over any town or city – let alone Colorado as a whole. Republican Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said in a September joint statement, issued with the conservative chair of the city council’s public safety committee, that the gang “has not ‘taken over’ the city” and that problems with the gang “experienced at a select few properties do not apply to the city as a whole or large portions of it.” Coffman noted that the city’s police department had linked 10 people to the gang and arrested eight.

Migrants and towns: Trump, talking about the migrants who have entered the country under Biden and Harris, promised to “rescue…every town across America that has been invaded and conquered,” adding, “They’ve been conquered; they’re conquering the towns.” This is nonsense; no US town has been “conquered” by migrants.

The word “caravan”: Talking about migrant caravans, Trump repeated his false claim that he invented the term: “The caravan. I made up that name too. I’m good at names.” Trump did not come up with the word “caravan,” either in general – the word came to English in the 16th century – or in using it to describe groups of migrants traveling together toward the US border; before he first used it in that context in a 2018 tweet, it had been used by various others in the same context in the days and weeks prior, including in a BuzzFeed News feature article headlined, “A Huge Caravan Of Central Americans Is Headed For The US, And No One In Mexico Dares To Stop Them.”

Central American countries and deportations: Trump repeated his long-debunked story about how Latin American countries including Honduras – he has previously named Guatemala and El Salvador as well – refused to let the US deport criminals back there under President Barack Obama, even refusing to let deportation flights land on their runways. In 2016, Obama’s last calendar year in office, neither Honduras nor the other two countries were on the list of countries that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) considered “recalcitrant” (uncooperative) in accepting the return of their citizens from the US; in the 2016 fiscal year, ICE reported that Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador ranked second, third and fourth for the country of citizenship of people being removed from the US.

Harris and “missing” children: Trump falsely claimed that Harris “lost 325,000 migrant children” and declared that “most of them are dead, in my opinion”; agreeing with a comment from someone in his rally crowd, he added that “all” of them might be dead.

There is no basis for Trump’s claim that even “most” of these children are dead – or for his claim that Harris was responsible for all of the children.

He appeared to be referring to an August report from the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Inspector General, which said ICE reported more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear as scheduled for immigration court hearings after being released or transferred out of custody between fiscal years 2019 and 2023 – a period that, notably, includes two years and four months under the Trump administration. The report also said that 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children during this period were not given notices to appear in court.

The report said that ICE has “no assurances” these children “are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.” But it did not definitively assert that any of them were being exploited – let alone that most of them are dead, a claim experts say is nonsense.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told CNN in a message this summer: “Long story short, no, there are not 320,000 kids missing. 32,000 kids missed court. That doesn’t mean they’re missing, it means they missed court (either because their sponsor didn’t bring them or they are teenagers who didn’t want to show up). The remaining 291,000 cases mentioned by the OIG are cases where ICE hasn’t filed the paperwork to start their immigration court cases.”

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