{"id":1571,"date":"2025-07-03T18:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T18:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/03\/fact-checking-trumps-immigration-and-one-big-beautiful-bill-claims\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T18:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T18:42:12","slug":"fact-checking-trumps-immigration-and-one-big-beautiful-bill-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/03\/fact-checking-trumps-immigration-and-one-big-beautiful-bill-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact-checking Trump\u2019s immigration and One Big Beautiful Bill claims"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

United States President Donald Trump has toured Florida\u2019s Alligator Alcatraz<\/a> immigration detention facility in the Everglades before it gets its first detainees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s known as Alligator Alcatraz, which is very appropriate because I looked outside and that\u2019s not a place I want to go hiking,\u201d Trump told the media during a livestreamed event on Tuesday. \u201cBut very soon, this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump campaigned for the presidency on promises to tackle immigration but faces a shortage of detention beds. The One Big Beautiful Bill<\/a>, Trump\u2019s tax and spending plan, passed the Senate during his Florida stop and includes $150bn<\/a>\u00a0for his deportation agenda over four years.<\/p>\n

State officials quickly built the expected 5,000-bed facility to detain immigrants on top of a decades-old landing strip. The Department of Homeland Security pegged the one-year cost of running the facility at $450m, which it plans to pay for with money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s Shelter and Services Program.<\/p>\n

Florida officials, including former Trump rival Governor Ron DeSantis, joined the president and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for the tour. DeSantis said Noem\u2019s team told him the facility would be opened to receive detainees after Trump\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n

Trump talked for more than an hour as he deflected questions about who could lose Medicaid healthcare coverage under the tax and spending legislation, warmly responded to a suggestion to arrest former President Joe Biden\u2019s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and repeated a frequent complaint about shower heads lacking sufficient water pressure. Noem, meanwhile, said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement had detained a \u201ccannibal\u201d who \u201cstarted to eat himself\u201d on an airplane.<\/p>\n

Here is a fact check of some of Trump\u2019s remarks:<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s \u2018illegal alien\u2019 cost estimate comes from group that advocates for low immigration levels<\/h2>\n

While talking about the goal of cutting the federal budget, Trump said: \u201cThe average illegal alien costs American taxpayers an estimated $70,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is a lifetime estimate by an organisation that supports low levels of immigration. Critics have taken issue with it.<\/p>\n

The White House quoted 2024 testimony to a committee in the House of Representatives by Steven A Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies.<\/p>\n

Camarota said in written testimony: \u201cThe lifetime fiscal drain (taxes paid minus costs) for each illegal immigrant is about $68,000.\u201d He based his estimate on immigrants\u2019 net fiscal impact by education level.<\/p>\n

Camarota said the estimate came with caveats, including what percentage of immigrants in the US illegally were using welfare programmes and the amount of benefits they received and their use of public schools and emergency services.<\/p>\n

Other analyses show positive economic effects from undocumented immigrants in the US.<\/p>\n

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, in a 2024 report found both costs and benefits from the Biden-era immigration increase. On net, CBO found, the impact was positive in several areas.<\/p>\n

The CBO estimated an $8.9 trillion boost to the gross domestic product \u2013 a measurement of overall economic activity \u2013 over 10 years because of the immigration surge, which would improve wages, salaries and corporate profits. The CBO also estimated that federal deficits would decline by almost $1 trillion over 10 years because of increased tax revenues from immigrants, which the agency estimated would outweigh the costs they imposed in the form of additional federal outlays.<\/p>\n

Separately, the libertarian Cato Institute in 2023 found \u201cimmigrants generate nearly $1 trillion (in 2024 dollars) in state, local and federal taxes, which is almost $300 billion more than they receive in government benefits, including cash assistance, entitlements, and public education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael A Clemens, a George Mason University economist, told PolitiFact that although the Center for Immigration Studies counted the use of public schools by immigrants in the US illegally as a cost, he and other economists see public school funding as having net positive benefits.<\/p>\n

Trump repeats \u2018autopen\u2019 conspiracy theory about Biden<\/h2>\n

Trump said: \u201cWe have a lot of bad criminals that came into the country. \u2026 It was an unforced error. It was an incompetent president that allowed it to happen. It was an autopen, maybe, that allowed it to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was referring to a conspiracy theory in pro-Trump circles that Biden was so out of the loop during his own presidency that aides were able to repeatedly forge his signature with a mechanical autopen to pursue their own policy goals.<\/p>\n

No evidence has surfaced to indicate that a document Biden signed \u2013 whether by autopen or not \u2013 was done without his knowledge or consent. Anything Biden signed using an autopen would have been valid, legal experts say.<\/p>\n

In March, we rated Trump\u2019s claim that Biden\u2019s pardons weren\u2019t valid because they were signed with an autopen false<\/a>. US presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, routinely have had subordinates sign pardons on their behalf.<\/p>\n

\"Biden\"
Then-President Joe Biden signs a proclamation to establish two national monuments at the White House on January 14, 2025, in Washington, DC [Evan Vucci\/AP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trump falsely says policy bill targets only Medicaid \u2018waste, fraud and abuse\u2019<\/h2>\n

During his visit, reporters asked Trump about the One Big Beautiful Bill \u2013 which the Senate approved mid-visit \u2013 and its effect on Medicaid. \u201cAre you saying that the estimated 11.8 million people who could lose their health coverage, that is all waste, fraud and abuse?\u201d a reporter asked.<\/p>\n

Trump said: \u201cNo, I\u2019m not saying that. I\u2019m saying it\u2019s going to be a very much smaller number than that, and that number will be waste, fraud and abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

We rated a similar version of Trump\u2019s statement\u00a0false<\/a>,\u00a0finding that the Medicaid changes go beyond just waste, fraud and abuse.<\/p>\n

The 11.8 million figure comes from a CBO analysis of the Senate-passed bill.<\/p>\n

Although some provisions could improve the detection of beneficiaries who aren\u2019t eligible for coverage, other provisions of the House and the Senate bills would change the healthcare programme for low-income Americans to align with Trump\u2019s ideology and Republican priorities.<\/p>\n

The bill incentivises states to stop using their own funds to cover people in the US illegally; it requires people to work or do another approved activity to secure benefits; and it bans Medicaid payments for gender-affirming care and to nonprofits such as Planned Parenthood that provide abortions among other services.<\/p>\n

Other changes would impose copays and a shorter window for retroactive coverage. These would change the programme\u2019s fiscal outlook but would not target waste, fraud or abuse.<\/p>\n

Trump doubles estimate of immigrant arrivals under Biden<\/h2>\n

Trump said: \u201cIn the four years before I took office, Joe Biden allowed 21 million people, \u2026 illegal aliens, to invade our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

This campaign talking point remains\u00a0false<\/a>. During Biden\u2019s tenure, immigration officials encountered immigrants illegally crossing the US border about 10 million times. When accounting for \u201cgot-aways\u201d \u2013 people who evade border officials \u2013 the number rises to about 11.6 million.<\/p>\n

Encounters\u00a0aren\u2019t the same as\u00a0admissions. Encounters represent events, so one person who tries to cross the border twice counts as two encounters. Also, not everyone encountered is let into the country. The Homeland Security Department\u00a0estimated<\/a>\u00a0about 4 million encounters under Biden led to expulsions or removals.<\/p>\n

During Biden\u2019s administration, about\u00a03.8 million people<\/a> were released into the US to await immigration court hearings, Department of Homeland Security data show.<\/p>\n

PolitiFact staff researcher Caryn Baird and staff writer Ella Moore contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United States President Donald Trump has toured Florida\u2019s Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention facility in the Everglades before it gets its first detainees. \u201cIt\u2019s known as Alligator Alcatraz, which is very appropriate because I looked outside and that\u2019s not a place I want to go hiking,\u201d Trump told the media during a livestreamed event on Tuesday. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}