At his first presidential news conference yesterday, President Joe Biden took questions on immigration, foreign policy and more. Here's some fact-checking:
Asked about the increase in immigrant children crossing the border, Biden said "Truth of the matter is, nothing has changed. As many people came — 28 percent increase in children to the border in my administration; 31% in the last year in 2019, before the pandemic — in the Trump administration. It happens every single solitary year. There is a significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of January, February, March. It happens every year."
Border crossings do have seasonal trends, but "unaccompanied immigrant children have come to the border in higher numbers than what he said," report Nomaan Merchand and Josh Boak of The Associated Press. "According to statistics published by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, authorities encountered 9,457 children without a parent in February, a 61% increase from January, not 28%. The numbers of unaccompanied children did rise 31% between January 2019 and February 2019." And while Biden downplayed his election as a reason many youths decided to come to the U.S., AP interviewed migrants who said they hope immigration policies would be more permissive under him.Biden said the U.S. is sending back the "vast majority" of families crossing the border illegally. Not so, Jane C. Timm reports for NBC News. It's true that they're sending back more than 70% of people at the border, according to data from February, but less than half of family units were sent back.
Biden addressed Republican complaints that his pandemic relief-and-stimulus package was too expensive, saying GOP lawmakers and President Trump passed a nearly $2 trillion tax cut, 83% of which 83% benefitted the wealthiest 1%. That's misleading, AP says: The tax cuts disproportionately favored the top 1%, but the stats Biden cited will only be true if Congress extends the cuts in 2027.
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