WASHINGTON D.C.— Ahead of tonight’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, we can confidently predict two things. First, Donald Trump will lie. Second, Donald Trump will promote his extreme anti-immigrant ideology. Over the past few years, we’ve seen him do both – a lot. He has told false stories, cited misleading data, and invented facts to justify a dangerous and destructive anti-immigrant agenda. Now he’s using the same lies to advance his extreme mass deportation plans.
As we prepare for tonight’s debate, let’s look back at 51 of the times Trump was fact-checked for lies about the border and immigration:
Trump said, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Fact Check: Four Pinocchios
Trump said the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement “is so much better than the old, very costly & anti-USA NAFTA deal, that just by the money we save, MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!”
Fact Check: Experts Say It Won’t
Trump said, Biden “already [has] the right to CLOSE DOWN THE BORDER NOW.”
Fact Check: Unsupported
Trump said, “That’s why they are allowing these people to come in — people that don’t speak our language — they are signing them up to vote.”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump campaign promoted an outlandish false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have abducted and eaten their neighbors’ pets.
Fact Check: Absolutely no evidence.
Trump said, “It’s possible that non-citizen voters were responsible for Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina.”
Fact Check: Pants on Fire
Trump said, “behind me and to the right was a large screen that was displaying a chart of border crossings under my leadership, the numbers were absolutely amazing.”
Fact Check: Mostly False
Trump claimed the U.S. has “thousands of judges — border judges — thousands and thousands.”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, “We have to break up families” entering the country illegally, because of “bad laws that the Democrats gave us.”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, 15 million people have crossed the border.
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump has repeatedly stated and posted falsely that undocumented immigrants are receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits and threatening the solvency of both programs.
Fact Check: This is another one of Trump’s numerous lies
Trump said, “The Democrats want to have no borders. They want to get rid of ICE.”
Fact Check: Distorts the Facts
Trump said, Because of “people that should’ve never been allowed to come over the border,” crime is “going through the roof.”
Fact Check: Four Pinocchios
Trump said, “You know, Mexico has the strongest immigration laws in the world. There’s nobody who has stronger. I guess some have the same, but you can’t get any stronger than what Mexico has.”
Fact Check: Four Pinocchios
Trump said, “the Biden administration has an open-border policy.”
Fact Check: False.
Trump said, “[W]e’re up to 259 miles right now, of great powerful wall that’s really working, because if you look at the numbers, in addition to the fact that Mexico for various reasons has 27,000 soldiers on our southern border to keep people out of our country […] and we have great, great numbers.”
Fact Check: Misleading
Trump said, “Unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in” a migrant caravan coming to the US border.
Fact Check: No evidence
Trump said, “The military will build the remaining sections of the Wall.”
Fact Check: This lacks evidence.
Trump said, “The biggest threat to your unions is millions of people coming across the border, because you’re not gonna have your jobs anymore.”
Fact Check: Mostly False
Trump said, “I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law.”
Fact Check: Four Pinocchios
Trump said, “88,000 children are missing. … And unfortunately, many of those children are dead, just like many of the hostages held by Hamas.”
Fact Check: Three Pinocchios
Trump said, “Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release.”
Fact Check: Three Pinocchios
Trump said, three border agents in San Diego “were very badly hurt through getting hit with rocks and stones.”
Fact Check: Unsupported
Trump said, Says Sen. Charles Schumer “repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past along with many other Democrats. They changed their mind only after I was elected president.”
Fact Check: Mostly False
Trump said, A Trump television ad shows Mexicans swarming over “our southern border.”
Fact Check: Pants on Fire
Trump said, “MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL through the many billions of dollars a year that the U.S.A. is saving through the new Trade Deal, the USMCA, that will replace the horrendous NAFTA Trade Deal.”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, “That’s why they are allowing these people to come in — people that don’t speak our language — they are signing them up to vote.”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, Joe Biden “is letting millions of people from jails, from prisons, from insane asylums, from mental institutions, drug dealers pour in.”
Fact Check: Pants on Fire
Trump said, “Mexico, as you know, as of yesterday, has been starting to apprehend a lot of people at their southern border coming in from Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador. And they’ve — they’re really apprehending thousands of people. And it’s the first time, really, in decades that this has taken place. And it should have taken place a long time ago.”
Fact Check: Four Pinocchios
Trump said, “Crime in Germany is up 10% plus (officials do not want to report these crimes) since migrants were accepted. Others countries are even worse. Be smart America!”
Fact Check: Four Pinocchios
Trump said, “Virtually 100% of the new jobs under Biden have also gone to illegal aliens.”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, Pointing to a chart on illegal immigration, “See the arrow on the bottom? That was my last week in office. That was the lowest number in history.”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, Claimed the Biden administration “flew 325,000 migrants” into the U.S. from “parts unknown.”
Fact Check: Misleading
Trump said, “Mexico is paying for the Wall” through the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Fact Check: Experts Say It Won’t
Trump said, “The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER, at Record Numbers.”
Fact Check: Pants on Fire
Trump said, “Last month, 20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States. … These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs.”
Fact Check: No Evidence
Trump said, “[W]e’re completing the wall, like I said I would.”
Fact Check: Far Short of Promise
Trump said, a proclamation by President Joe Biden to limit asylum eligibility “establishes an annual minimum of approximately 2 million illegal alien border crossers.”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, Democrats “are KILLING SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE by allowing the INVASION OF THE MIGRANTS”
Fact Check: Four Pinocchios
Trump said on unaccompanied children who crossed the border, “88,000 children are missing under this administration … And unfortunately, many of those children are dead.”
Fact Check: Distorts the Facts
Trump said, Barrier will be steel rather than concrete “at the request of Democrats”
Fact Check: FALSE.
Trump said, “illegal traffic” has declined from 72 percent to 96 percent in San Diego, El Paso, Yuma and Tucson “once the wall was up.”
Fact Check: This is misleading.
Trump said, in the last 2 years, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records.
Fact Check: Out of context
Trump said, border crossings have created “flat-out economic warfare on African American and Hispanic American families and workers. These people are taking the jobs of African Americans, they’re taking the jobs of Hispanic Americans. … Unions are being absolutely slaughtered.”
Fact Check: No Evidence
Trump claimed that only 3 percent of those who were released after being caught illegally crossing the border show up for their immigration hearings.
Fact Check: Unsupported
Trump said, for the “first time” in “decades” Mexico “has been starting to apprehend a lot of people at their southern border coming in” from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, 15 million people have crossed border
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, “Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders, and it’s a bill, it’s called the ‘open borders bill.’”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, Democrats want “open borders.”
Fact Check: FALSE
Trump said, “We’re releasing them [undocumented immigrants] into sanctuary cities almost exclusively. You know, sanctuary cities want them. But once we started releasing them, they didn’t want them. So, you know, they want them, they talk — they talk a good game. But once you start saying: ‘Okay. Congratulations. Here are some.’ And they don’t want them. And they fight very hard. So, the whole sanctuary city thing is a big scam.”
Fact Check: Four Pinocchios
Trump said, “We proudly handed the Biden administration the most secure border in history. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot.”
Fact Check: Mostly False
