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** A Deep Dive Into a Trump Talking Point
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A staple of former President Donald Trump's speeches for the law few years is an unsubstantiated claim that countries around the world are “emptying out their prisons” and “emptying out their mental institutions” and sending those people to the U.S. He has offered no proof.

In recent speeches, Trump has added -- as supposed support for his claim -- that crime in Venezuela is down “a staggering 67%” in a year, while alleging that "migrant crime" is rampant in the U.S. Other times, he has put the drop in Venezuelan crime at “72% in a year.”

Deputy Managing Editor Robert Farley decided to take a deep dive into Venezuelan crime, prisons and gangs. He and Staff Writer Catalina Jaramillo conducted interviews with Venezuelan experts in that country's criminal justice system, and reviewed the available data.

What they found is in today's article, "Crime Drop in Venezuela Does Not Prove Trump’s Claim the Country Is Sending Criminals to U.S. ([link removed]) "

As Rob and Catalina write, reliable crime statistics are notoriously difficult to obtain in Venezuela. In the absence of reliable government reporting, media and nongovernmental organizations have become the most trusted sources for documenting and tracking crime.

The independent Venezuelan Observatory of Violence in December reported a 25% decrease in violent deaths between 2022 and 2023. But the number of violent deaths has been declining for years in Venezuela -- even when Trump was the U.S. president.

Roberto Briceño-León, the founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, told us the drop in crime is due to worsening economic and living conditions in the country. Those conditions have led to a massive out-migration of nearly 8 million people since 2014 -- coinciding with the installation of Venezuelan president and autocratic leader Nicolás Maduro.

“Crime is reduced in Venezuela due to a reduction in crime opportunities,” Briceño-León told us.

The prison population, too, is declining. But Briceño-León and others in Venezuela told us that they have seen no evidence that the drop in crime or prison population supports Trump's claims. There are other reasons for the declines, as Rob and Catalina detail in their article.
HOW WE KNOW
A go-to source when fact-checking climate science claims is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC was created by the United Nations in 1988 “to prepare a comprehensive review and recommendations with respect to the state of knowledge of the science of climate change," as the IPCC explains ([link removed]) . Since 1988, the IPCC has produced six assessment reports. Staff Writer Kate Yandell cited the most recent report when she wrote about Antarctica ice loss. Read more ([link removed]) .
FEATURED FACT
Behind the increase in apprehensions of those crossing illegally into the U.S. is a spike in migrants seeking asylum. While asylum application figures aren’t broken down by how immigrants enter the U.S., the overall statistics show nearly 89,000 asylum applications in the U.S. in fiscal year 2021; in fiscal 2023, the figure was nearly 479,000. Less than 15% of those seeking asylum were granted it in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to Justice Department statistics. Read more ([link removed]) .
WORTHY OF NOTE
We have another new partner.

Our articles, in English and Spanish, will now appear in El País ([link removed]) -- a Spanish-language daily newspaper based in Spain. It reportedly ([link removed]) has a print circulation of 785,000 and more than 75 million unique visitors per month to its website. It recently launched ([link removed]) a U.S. edition.

Our first story appeared in El País on Sunday, June 9. The publication posted our item "Factchecking Biden’s promises ‘kept. ([link removed]) '"

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Tenemos un nuevo aliado.

Desde ahora, nuestros artículos en inglés y en español aparecerán en El País ([link removed]) , el periódico en español basado en España. Según informa, su edición impresa tiene una circulación de 785.000 y su página web más de 75 millones de navegadores únicos. El País recientemente lanzó ([link removed]) una edición en Estados Unidos.

Nuestra primera historia en El País apareció el domingo 9 de junio. El medio publicó nuestro artículo en inglés "Factchecking Biden’s promises ‘kept ([link removed]) '"
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REPLY ALL

Reader: Two questions: 1. Who funds FactCheck.org? 2. Who owns FactCheck.org?

FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: You ask good questions. I’m happy to answer them.

Who owns FactCheck.org?

FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. The APPC – our parent organization -- was established by publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennsylvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state and federal levels.

Who funds FactCheck.org?

Most of our funding comes from the Annenberg Foundation - which provided the founding grant to start FactCheck.org in 2003. We also have received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for the past two years. In addition, we have a contract with Facebook, which started a fact-checking project in December 2016 to debunk social media misinformation. Since 2010, we have accepted donations from our readers.

We publish online quarterly and annual financial reports. You can find them on our website here ([link removed]) .

Our policy is to disclose the identity of any individual or organization that makes a donation of $1,000 or more. In 2015, Inside Philanthropy praised our disclosure policy for “exemplifying nonprofit transparency.”

“FactCheck.org is totally transparent about its funding sources — going so far as to list a detailed breakdown of financial support by every quarter, the same standard expected of political campaigns and party committees,” it wrote. “So, quite apart from its stated mission, FactCheck.org is making a contribution by exemplifying nonprofit transparency.”

We are independent. Donors have no control over our editorial decisions.


** Wrapping Up
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Here's what else we've got for you this week:
* "Posts Make Unsupported Claim About Kansas City Chiefs and Pride Month ([link removed]) ": The Kansas City Chiefs offer a “Pride Collection” of merchandise for the team’s LGBTQ+ fans. But social media posts are making the unsupported claim that the team “Refuses to Participate in Pride Month” this year. The claim apparently originated in a satirical article, and we could find no announcement from the team regarding this year’s Pride Month.
* "Q&A on Biden’s Border Order ([link removed]) ": On June 4, President Joe Biden announced new measures to restrict asylum eligibility for those apprehended while trying to enter the U.S. illegally across the southern border. Here, we answer several questions about Biden’s action.
* "Meme Spreads Unsupported Claim About Net Worth of Alvin Bragg ([link removed]) ": Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the conviction of former President Donald Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on May 30. Now Bragg has become the target of viral social media posts that claim, without evidence, that he has a net worth of $42 million or more and baselessly imply that Bragg is corrupt.

Y lo que publicamos en español ([link removed]) (English versions are accessible in each story):
* "La pérdida de hielo antártico es significativa, al contrario de lo que se afirma ([link removed]) ": La Antártida está perdiendo masa de hielo en el océano, lo que contribuye al aumento global del nivel del mar. Pero un video popular tergiversó investigaciones centradas en las plataformas de hielo de la Antártida, que flotan en el mar en los bordes del continente, para sugerir incorrectamente que “no está claro si, a fin de cuentas, la Antártida está perdiendo hielo”.
* "Trump tergiversa nueva regulación que extiende ‘Obamacare’ a los beneficiarios de DACA ([link removed]) ": Una nueva regla de la administración de Biden permitirá que los beneficiarios de la Acción Diferida para los Llegados en la Infancia (DACA, por sus siglas en inglés) sean elegibles para obtener planes de seguro de salud establecidos por la Ley de Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio (ACA, por sus siglas en inglés), también conocida como Obamacare. Sin embargo, el expresidente Donald Trump ha tergiversado la regulación, afirmando que está “dando Obamacare y toda la atención médica gratuita del gobierno a los inmigrantes ilegales”.

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