Fact Checking President Biden’s Claims on Immigration
He was correct in stating that the majority of people are being sent back, but incorrect to say so about the majority of families.
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During the first press conference of his presidency on Thursday, President Joe Biden claimed, “If you take a look at the number of people are coming, the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of people coming to the border and crossing are being sent back, are being sent back” and, “We’re sending back the vast majority of the families that are coming.”
In February 2021—the first full month of the Biden administration and the only month with data available thus far—Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations agents had 100,441 encounters with individuals attempting to cross the border. Biden’s first claim—that a majority of those coming over the border are being sent back—is accurate: Of the 100,441 individuals to come over in February, Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations expelled 70,183 immigrants and 1,930 immigrants respectively under Title 42 of the U.S. Code, a public health code that gives the executive branch the authority to block immigrants from countries currently experiencing the spread of a communicable disease.
(Most immigration regulation falls under Title 8, but since the beginning of the pandemic, the U.S. government has cited Title 42 in a majority of expulsions , a process that allows the government to expel immigrants much faster than occurs following the typical process outlined under Title 8.)
A further 26,791 and 1,537 immigrants were apprehended under Title 8 by Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations respectively in February. Apprehension does not mean such individuals have been expelled from the United States, as Title 8 requires detainment and processing of the immigrants and allowing them the opportunity to request asylum.
While a majority of individuals encountered by border authorities have been expelled since Biden took office—72,113 out of 100,441, or roughly 72 percent—Biden is not correct to claim that a majority of families have been sent back to their home countries.
Of the 100,441 encounters in February, 19,246 of those individuals were part of family units, with the Border Patrol encountering 18,945 of those immigrants and the Office of Field Operations encountering 301 of them. Data for February shows that 7,915 of these immigrants were expelled under Title 42, slightly over 41 percent.
If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.
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President Biden said, "We’re sending back the vast majority of the families that are coming." You're instead measuring the share of the individuals within families who were returned. Those are different, right? If the families returned had fewer kids on average than the families that arrived, then the ratio of (families returned)/(families arrived) might be greater than the ratio of (family members returned)/family members arrived).
I don't know that this happened, although it would seem consistent with a philosophy of "don't return the kids." But based on that data I can't see how you can definitively conclude that the president's statement is incorrect.
What am I missing?
I appreciate this fact check. It was helpful. I had not seen this information anywhere else. Yet, this Biden point was not what concerned me most. I was most concerned that Biden insisted that no Administration, except Trump, left Migrant Children to starve to death. Where is the fact check on this? This is an outrageous statement whether its true or false. How can a statement like this not be fact checked?