President Biden and Former President Trump Deliver Speeches on US-Mexico Border, but Facts and Figures Differ
On Thursday, February 23, 2023, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump delivered separate speeches at different Texas locations near the United States-Mexico border. Although both leaders touched upon immigration issues, their speeches conveyed vastly different facts and figures.
President Biden’s Speech – Factual and Informative
During his speech, President Biden primarily focused on the bipartisan border bill he supports. He provided a detailed explanation of various provisions in the bill, emphasizing the importance of addressing the root causes of migration from Central America and collaborating with regional partners to ensure a safe and orderly process for immigrants seeking asylum in the US.
Former President Trump’s Speech – Assertions with Questionable Facts
Minutes before Biden’s speech, Trump delivered an unscripted address. His statements regarding migrants were often unsubstantiated, misleading, or outright false.
Trump claimed that migrants consist of “entire columns of fighting-age men” and that they represent some sort of hidden enemy force, insinuating a baseless narrative about foreign adversaries using migration to assemble an army within the US. He also suggested that unidentified individuals were allowing migrants into the country for nefarious reasons, alluding to his previous false claim about immigrants being enrolled to vote in the 2024 election.
Trump also stated that the US is being “overrun” by a new form of crime he termed “Biden migrant crime.” However, early data from 2023 indicates that the US is experiencing one of its lowest violent crime rates in over 50 years. Despite this, Trump’s speech contained several instances where undocumented immigrants were accused of committing serious offenses. It is important to note that research has shown no connection between immigration and crime, and sometimes immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than those born in the US.
Fact Check: Trump’s Unfounded Claims about Prisons and Insane Asylums
Trump repeated his long-standing assertion that migrants are arriving in the US after being released from prisons and mental health institutions. He claimed that “they’re coming from jails and they’re coming from prisons and they’re coming from mental institutions and they’re coming from insane asylums.” Trump went on to say that he knew many foreign leaders responsible for this supposed practice.
However, there is no evidence supporting Trump’s claim that jails throughout the world are being emptied to facilitate mass migration to the US or that foreign leaders are releasing prisoners and mental health patients for this purpose. In 2022, CNN could not find any evidence to support Trump’s claim when he made it in a narrower context, focusing on South American countries. No credible sources or organizations have corroborated this claim, and FactCheck.org also found no evidence to support it.
Fact Check: Trump’s Exaggeration about Border Wall Construction
Returning to one of his frequent exaggerations, Trump claimed that “we built 571 miles of border wall.” However, this statement is false. According to an official report by US Customs and Border Protection, Trump’s administration built 458 miles of border wall, including both new barriers in areas without previous walls and replacements for dilapidated barriers. This is a significantly smaller number than Trump’s inflated claim, which continues to be a staple of his campaign rhetoric.
