Tracking Trump’s repeated threats and claims on immigration
He sees issue as firing up his base for the midterms
Facing midterm elections forecasts that predict huge voter turnout for Democrats and the possible loss of one or both chambers of Congress for Republicans, President Donald Trump has seized on the immigration issue. He’s resurrected talking points from his 2016 presidential campaign and raised new ones to fire up his political base ahead of next week’s midterm elections.
He’s highlighted the issue at campaign rallies and press conferences. He’s ordered the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to respond to his claims of a “national emergency” at the southern border, deploying the military. And since he first mentioned the caravan of Central American migrants Oct. 16, he’s tweeted about the issue 34 times.
The president has already made major moves on immigration in his first 21 months in office, instituting a controversial travel ban targeting majorityMuslim countries, trying to end programs that have protected more than 1 million immigrants from deportation, and increasing arrests.
But in the home stretch leading into the midterm elections, he’s kicked his immigration rhetoric into another gear. Here’s a look at Trump’s threats and claims on the hot-button issue of immigration in the past few weeks: ❚ Claimed tent cities are under construction: During a press conference Thursday, Trump said his administration was already building “massive cities of tents” along the southern border to detain migrants claiming asylum. But the federal agencies that would perform that work could not confirm any construction plans Friday.
Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, commander of U.S. Northern Command,
said earlier in the week that the more than 7,000 active-duty troops being deployed to the southwest border are only there to answer a request from the Department of Homeland Security to build tents to house Customs and Border Protection personnel. On Friday, the Pentagon reiterated that position. ❚ Threatened to seal the entire southwest border: On Oct.18, Trump threatened to “CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!”
That stunned people on both sides of the border, as such a move would hurt both the Mexican and U.S. economies. ❚ Claimed caravan would try to enter U.S. illegally: The president has repeatedly claimed that members of the caravan are trying to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border, calling such actions an “invasion” and an “assault” on U.S. national sovereignty.
But a look at the last migrant caravan that reached the U.S. in April paints an entirely different picture. In that case, 122 members were caught illegally entering the country, but 401 did exactly what they said they were going to do: presented themselves at ports of entry and legally requested asylum.
Of the 401 who requested asylum, 93 percent passed an initial test where they must establish that they have a “credible fear” of returning to their home country, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. ❚ Claimed the caravan includes criminals, “Middle Easterners”: After the caravan crossed into Mexico, Trump turned up his attacks with an Oct. 22 tweet claiming without evidence that there were criminals and “Middle Easterners” mixed into the caravan.
A Homeland Security spokesman tweeted that the department had confirmed the president’s claim but gave no evidence. Instead, it circulated data showing of the nearly 400,000 people caught illegally crossing the southern border in fiscal year 2018, 4.4 percent had criminal backgrounds, 0.3 percent were gang members, and 0.8 percent
were “special interest aliens,” defined by the Government Accountability Office as “aliens from countries of special interest to the United States such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan.”
The following day, Trump admitted he had “no proof” of criminals in the caravan. “There’s no proof of anything,” he said. “But they could very well be.” ❚ Ordered active-duty military
troops to border: After threatening for days to deploy the military, Trump gave the official order deploying active-duty troops to the border to complement the 16,500 Border Patrol agents manning the border and the 2,100 National Guard troops who have been stationed there since April under a separate order.
The estimated size of the active-duty mobilization has been increasing almost daily. Trump has said the number could balloon all the way up to 15,000. ❚ Threatened to end birthright citizenship: In an interview with “Axios on HBO,” Trump declared that he could eliminate birthright citizenship, which confers U.S. citizenship on anybody born on U.S. soil, through an executive order.
“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,” he said.
Most legal scholars, and even House Speaker Paul Ryan, disagree. Birthright citizenship was adopted via the 14th Amendment 150 years ago and upheld
by the Supreme Court 30 years later.
Trump also claimed that the U.S. was the only country to grant birthright citizenship, which is false. ❚ Threatened to cut aid to Central America: The president tweeted a threat Oct. 16 to cut off the $500 million in foreign aid the U.S. sends to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras if they allowed the caravan to cross their borders.
Trump has repeated that threat several times in an effort to get those governments to stop citizens from leaving.
But critics say cutting off funding for those Central American nations would only worsen the dangerous conditions that drive people away in the first place. ❚ Threatened to tear up renegotiated NAFTA deal: As the caravan approached Mexico, Trump set his sights on Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose term ends Dec. 1.
On Oct. 18, Trump said the “assault on our country” by the migrant caravan was more important to him than the $1.2 trillion-a-year United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that he had just finalized earlier in the month to replace a NAFTA deal he had long decried.
Pena Nieto responded by sending two Boeing 727 planes filled with federal police to the southern border and by offering work permits and public health benefits to caravan members. The caravan brushed past the Mexican police; 1,700 migrants accepted the offer.