Trump Charts a New Immigration Fallacy

In recent appearances, former President Donald Trump has been touting a chart produced by his campaign team that shows the number of apprehensions at the southern border since 2012. 

“See the arrow on the bottom?" Trump said at an April 2 rally, pointing to the campaign chart. "That was my last week in office. That was the lowest number in history.”

In an interview two days later, Trump told Hugh Hewitt: "You saw that chart that was released a couple days ago where literally the day I left office, we had the lowest number in history."

Trump's wrong on both counts, as FactCheck.org Deputy Managing Editor Rob Farley discovered.

"In fact," Rob writes, "the arrow is pointing to apprehensions in April 2020, when apprehensions plummeted during the height of the pandemic. In his last months in office, apprehensions had more than quadrupled from that pandemic low and were higher than the month he took office."

In April 2020, there were 16,182 apprehensions at the southwest border, but businesses across the globe that month closed and people stayed at home. 

Also, as Rob notes, April 2020 was not the lowest point in history. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection monthly data is only available online back to 2000, and the lowest point since then came in April 2017, shortly after Trump took office. 

So what happened at the border in Trump's final months? 

"In reality, apprehensions at the border in Trump’s final two months in office were substantially higher than in President Barack Obama’s last two months in office," Rob writes.

In fact, there were more than 69,000 apprehensions in each of Trump's last four months in office, from October 2020 through January 2021. The highest number of apprehensions in Obama's eight years was 67,342 in March 2009. 

It's true that illegal immigration has skyrocketed under Biden, as Trump's chart shows even without cherry-picking the pandemic low. But illegal immigration was not at "the lowest number in history" before Trump left office. In fact, it was higher in Trump's final months than it was at any point under Obama. 

Read the full story, "Trump’s Misleading Chart on Illegal Immigration."

Reader: Did [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg say it is not acceptable to post the Lord's Prayer on Facebook?

FactCheck.org Staff Writer D'Angelo Gore: The false rumor that Facebook users are not allowed to post the Lord's Prayer on the social media platform has been circulating for several years. The claim has been debunked by multiple fact-checking organizations, but it continues to resurface online regularly. 

Spokespeople for Meta, which owns Facebook, and Zuckerberg, who is the founder and CEO of Meta, have said that publishing the Christian prayer doesn't violate Meta's or Facebook's policies. In fact, Facebook’s Community Standards don't mention a prohibition on religious content other than religious hate speech.

Facebook defines hate speech as "direct attacks against people — rather than concepts or institutions — on the basis of what we call protected characteristics (PCs): race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease."

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "Posts Make Unsupported Claim About Trump Donation for Slain Officer": Former President Donald Trump attended the wake for slain New York City Police Officer Jonathan Diller and met with his family. But social media posts make the unsupported claim that Trump paid off the family’s mortgage. A nonprofit announced it would pay the mortgage and told a news outlet it had no contact with Trump about the Diller mortgage.
• "Shanahan Misleads on Women’s Fertility Trends": Women are having fewer children today than in the past globally, but experts say that’s by choice and it doesn’t mean “we are facing a crisis in reproductive health,” as Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate, said during her announcement speech. Infertility rates have remained steady during the last decades. 
• "Partisan Controversy Over Easter and Transgender Day of Visibility": Both Easter and the Transgender Day of Visibility happened to fall on March 31 this year. President Joe Biden recognized both occasions, as he has done every year in office. But some social media posts and conservative politicians characterized his acknowledgement of Transgender Day of Visibility as “mocking” Easter and declaring “war” on Christianity. 
• "Social Media Posts Inflate Net Worth of N.Y. Attorney General": New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a civil fraud case against former President Donald Trump, has a net worth of about $2.7 million, her most recent financial disclosure statement shows. But social media posts baselessly claim she’s worth $15 million. The claim appears to come from a website that says it “cannot guarantee its accuracy.” 
• "Players Guide 2024: Congressional Leadership Fund": Conservative super PAC seeking to preserve a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. 
• "Players Guide 2024: Priorities USA Action": A liberal hybrid PAC focusing on digital advertising that supports President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates. 
• "Players Guide 2024: Club for Growth Action" A super PAC that backs “free-market, limited government conservatives.”