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WASHINGTON – During President Trump’s presidential election, he and his allies repeated misleading or false claims about immigration, including then-President Biden secretly flew immigrants to the United States, FEMA used disaster relief funds on immigrants, and that many migrants were violent criminals.
On Tuesday, Trump repeated these claims and more during his nearly two-hour speech to Congress (his first address as the 47th president).
“The Democrat media and our friends said they needed a new law. They needed laws to secure borders. But it turns out that all we really need is a new president,” Trump said, applause from Republican lawmakers.
There were some familiar faces among the audience. Among them was the mother and sisters of Rayken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed by a Venezuelan immigrant who recently arrived in Athens, Georgia last year.
Immigration officials said Jose Ibarra, the man convicted of killing Riley, was allowed to enter the United States illegally and remain in the country while pursuing an immigration case. Riley’s family joined Trump on the campaign trail. The bill, named after her, requires federal detention of immigrants charged with theft-related crimes, was first signed by Trump in his second term.
Also present was Alexis Nungarei, the mother of 12-year-old Joselyn Nungarei, who was killed in Houston last year. Two other migrants who recently arrived from Venezuela have been charged with killing her. Alexis Nungarei joined Trump last year at a campaign event at the border in the southern US.
Some of Trump’s claims about immigration on Tuesday have been exposed previously.
Trump listed what he deemed an unnecessary federal program revealed by Elon Musk’s government efficiency, referring to “$59 million for illegal foreign hotel rooms in New York City.”
Musk said millions of dollars for disaster relief have been illegally spent by federal emergency management agencies to house immigrants in “high-end” hotels. The claims fired four federal employees, leading to the suspension of payments to New York for immigrant housing.
But that wasn’t FEMA money. The money is managed by FEMA on behalf of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Program for shelter and service programs that support local governments and nonprofits that support immigrants’ arrivals. Average daily rates for rooms contracted through a contract with Hotel ASSN in 2024. New York City was $156, according to a report from the city’s director’s office.
Similarly, Trump falsely accused Biden of running out of disaster funds last year after he spent everything on immigration.
Trump criticized the arrival of records at the southern border under Biden, saying, “Many of them were murderers, traffickers, gang members and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities around the world.”
Researchers found that undocumented immigrants committed crimes at significantly lower rates than their born citizens.
“Joe Biden wasn’t just opening our borders,” Trump said Tuesday. “He flew illegal aliens over them to overpower our schools, hospitals and communities across the country.”
The claim that Biden secretly flew hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the US and was promoted by a right-wing group called the Center for Immigration Research actually mentioned people allowed to travel under a program that allowed people in certain countries to actually fund tickets for their planes.
Even Springfield, Ohio, made a comeback that flew around in Trump’s speech on Tuesday.
In a discussion last year with then-Democrat opponent, then-President Kamala Harris, Trump repeated the false virus rumours that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are “eating the pets of people who live there.” Springfield was flooded with the threat of a hoax bomb that forced blockades, evacuations and closures at hospitals, schools and government buildings.
“All towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, have buckled under the weight of immigrant occupation and corruption, as no one has ever seen,” Trump said Tuesday. “A beautiful town has been destroyed.”
Some misleading statements were new. For example, Trump said in February there was the “lowest number of illegal border crossings ever.” Media reported that the border patrol has recorded the arrests of around 8,300 migrants who tried to illegally cross the US-Mexican border between ports of entry.
Data from the Border Patrol itself, dating back to 1925, shows several cases in 1967 when the average monthly arrest fell below 8,000 yen per month.
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Los Angeles Humanitarian Immigration Rights Coalition, said Trump’s statement on immigration was not surprising.
“He is obsessed with 0.04% of the population (13 million undocumented) and wants to put all the illnesses in this country in his knees,” he said in a statement after his speech.
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