Former President Donald Trump has made incendiary talk on immigration and border protection a centerpiece of his campaign rhetoric since 2015, and his rally in Glendale on Friday was no exception.
But claims he made at Desert Diamond Area before thousands of people about immigration and border policy were inaccurate, unsupported by data or need more explanation.
Trump’s problematic claims included assertions about Vice President Kamala Harris’ position on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, overstatements about the number of people who cross the border into Arizona unlawfully and a misunderstanding about the role of the Maricopa County sheriff.
During his speech, Trump invited the president of the Arizona Police Association onto the stage, and he also made a statement about immigration policy that’s worthy of further analysis.
Here’s what was said and the facts that put the claims into context.
Trump overstates number of unauthorized border crossers, misstates role of Maricopa County sheriff
Trump claimed during his rally in Glendale that 3 million people have come through the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.
Trump made the claim while praising former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was seated in a front row.
“Do you remember when Sheriff Joe was at the border. You didn’t have people coming in. I think for the one year he had one person come in, but they got him,” Trump said. “Now we have 3 million people coming in through your border, your border.”
Maricopa County, however, does not share a border with Mexico, although Arpaio did conduct crime suppression sweeps in predominantly Latino neighborhoods that were aimed at identifying and deporting people in the country illegally. A federal judge later ruled Arpaio’s immigration actions were unlawful.
Trump’s claim that 3 million people have come through the Arizona border with Mexico is also not accurate, based on a review of U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
Over the past four fiscal years, Border Patrol agents and CBP officers have encountered a total of nearly 2 million people unauthorized to legally enter the U.S. in the Tucson and Yuma sectors.
The number includes unauthorized migrants encountered at official ports of entry and between ports of entry. The Yuma sector straddles both the Arizona and California borders, so not all of the encounters took place in Arizona.
What’s more, the number includes encounters that occurred from Oct. 1, 2020, through July of this year. That period covers the Biden administration as well as the last three months of the Trump administration.
The 2 million number also only includes unauthorized migrants encountered by CBP officers and Border Patrol agents during that period, not the number of asylum seekers allowed to enter the U.S. and remain while asylum claims are pending. Many were deported to Mexico or other countries, either immediately or later. The 2 million encounters also do not represent 2 million individual people since many migrants attempt to cross again after being sent back to Mexico, and each apprehension is counted as a separate encounter.
In his 3 million number, Trump may have been including the number of so-called “gotaways” — unauthorized migrants who entered the U.S. after evading Border Patrol agents in addition to unauthorized migrant encounters. However, data for the estimated number of “gotaways” by the Border Patrol has not been published by CBP.
Trump said Harris ‘called for abolishing ICE,’ but she opposed Trump-era immigration practices, not the agency
During his speech at his Glendale rally, Trump said Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, “called for abolishing ICE.”
Harris had reportedly never stated the words “abolish ICE,” according to PolitiFact, even though some progressive politicians were using that rhetoric during the Trump administration.
In a June 2018 interview with MSNBC, Harris, then a U.S. senator representing California, said she believed there were issues with the way ICE was operating under the Trump administration and that “we need to probably even think about starting from scratch” because she believed the agency was conducting itself improperly.
But she was clear that the U.S. needed an immigration enforcement agency focused on improving public safety by deporting violent criminals. “ICE should exist,” she said.
Harris was not in charge of border security, contrary to Trump claims
In his remarks, Trump regarded Harris as the “border czar” who was in charge of border security.
While President Joe Biden appointed Harris early on in his term to investigate and help solve the root cause of migration issues in the U.S. southern border, Harris was never given control of border security, nor was she given the title of “border czar,” according to FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Some media characterized Harris as the Biden administration’s “border czar,” however, which was not publicly contested by the administration at the time.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE and CBP, handles border security. It is led by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a member of Biden’s Cabinet.
How many immigrants are released into the US daily?
Toward the end of his speech, Trump welcomed the president of the Arizona Police Association, Justin Harris, to the stage. Harris proclaimed his support for Trump and expressed a desire to close the southern U.S. border to restrict immigration.
“On average, there’s over 5,000 immigrants being released into the country every day,” the police leader said during his remarks. The Arizona Police Association is an umbrella organization representing police officers across the state.
He was talking about the practice of releasing immigrants into the U.S., where they can live while they wait for their legal processes, like asylum claims, to play out, and his assessment is high.
According to a CBS News analysis of CBP data, about 842,000 migrants were released into the U.S. between October 2023 and July 2024. That means, on average, about 2,800 migrants were released per day in a recent 10-month period.
Immigration patterns are not constant across the calendar year, however, and in some months during that 10-month stretch, there were far more releases, meaning the daily average for the month would be higher than the 10-month average.
In December 2023, for instance, there were about 192,000 releases, according to the CBS News analysis, which would mean about 6,400 daily releases nationwide.
Biden’s executive order in June limiting asylum claims has resulted in a significant drop in the number of migrants being released into the country, the CBS News analysis concluded.
Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris: Who drew bigger crowd to Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale?
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Fact check: Trump’s immigration and border claims at Glendale rally
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Publish date : 2024-08-24 01:01:00
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