Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie kicked off his campaign for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination with a June 6 town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire. We fact-checked his remarks, which included false or misleading claims about former President Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner, whom Christie attacked several times.

• Christie was wrong that Trump promised during the 2016 campaign that he would build a border wall “across the entire Mexico border.” On the campaign trail, Trump only ever promised to build a 1,000-mile wall along the nearly 2,000-mile border.

• He blamed Trump for rampant illegal immigration, in part, he said, because Trump “never changed one immigration law.” Trump may not have signed any major immigration bills, but he did institute an unprecedented number of executive policies that transformed the immigration system and made it harder for people to cross the border illegally.

• Christie left the false impression that United States residents were the first to get access to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine because of the U.S. free-market system. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was first made available to residents in the U.S., Canada and the European Union at about the same time in December 2020.

• Christie repeated the misleading claim that Barack Obama only provided “blankets” and “human rights aid” after Russia invaded regions of Ukraine in 2014. Obama’s administration also provided Ukraine with nonlethal military aid, including training, vehicles and radar equipment.

• He claimed that President Joe Biden initially said that “a small incursion” by Russia into Ukraine in 2022 “probably wouldn’t be a problem.” Biden said “Russia will be held accountable” for an invasion, but the U.S. response would depend on what Russia did.

• Christie also said that Trump didn’t hold any unscripted town halls in New Hampshire during the 2016 campaign cycle. But Trump’s campaign hosted a few events where he appeared to randomly select audience members who could ask him questions.

Trump’s Promised Border Wall

Christie was right that Trump didn’t fulfill his 2016 campaign promise to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it. But Christie, who called the promise “complete bull,” falsely claimed Trump said his border wall would run “across the entire Mexico border.” On the campaign trail, Trump only ever promised to build a 1,000-mile wall along the nearly 2,000-mile border.

Christie said he regretted not confronting Trump earlier in the 2016 campaign about some of the claims and promises he made.

“Because I knew that so much of what he said was complete baloney,” Christie said. “Like I knew it. ‘I am going to build the greatest, most wonderful wall across the entire Mexico border and Mexico is going to pay for it.’ Well, like, I knew as someone who had governed that that was complete bull.”

As we wrote in our wrap-up on the history of the wall under Trump in December 2020, although the 2016 Republican platform stated, “The border wall must cover the entirety of the southern border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular and pedestrian traffic,” that’s not actually what Trump talked about during the campaign.

At the time, Trump consistently talked about needing 1,000 miles of wall. For example, during the third Republican primary debate on Oct. 28, 2015, Trump said, “Here, we actually need 1,000 because we have natural barriers. So we need 1,000.” Christie was on the stage at the time. But that’s just one of numerous examples of Trump talking during the 2016 campaign about needing just 1,000 miles of border wall.

After Trump was elected, he began to move the goal posts — from 1,000 miles to 900 to 800 to 700 and even less. In the end, 458 miles of “border wall system” was built during Trump’s term, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection status report on Jan. 22, 2021. But most of it, 373 miles worth, was replacement barriers for primary or secondary fencing that was dilapidated or outdated. About 52 miles of new primary wall and 33 miles of secondary wall were built where no barriers had been before.

So Trump never built the length of wall he promised during the campaign, and Mexico never paid for any of the wall that was built. During his presidency, Trump tried to claim that Mexico was paying for the wall through the newly negotiated U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which was not accurate. Trump later claimed he never meant that Mexico would “write out a check” to pay for the wall. But as we wrote, that wasn’t true either.

Attacking Trump on Immigration

Christie blamed Trump for rampant illegal immigration, in part because Trump “never changed one immigration law.” Trump may not have signed any major immigration bills, but he did institute numerous executive policies that immigration experts said transformed the immigration system and reduced the number of people trying to cross the border illegally.

“And when you watch illegal immigration pouring over our southern border, don’t wonder whose fault it is. It’s his [Trump’s],” Christie said. “It’s his fault, because he never changed one immigration law. In the two years that he had Republicans control the Congress, not one immigration law did he change. He didn’t build the wall like he told us to. And Mexico is laughing at us, at the idea that they were going to pay for a wall on their border.”

It’s true that Congress didn’t pass — and Trump didn’t sign — any major immigration bills. In fact, the last major immigration bill that made it into law happened in 1986. But Christie’s comment ignores the numerous changes Trump instituted simply through executive actions.

According to a February 2022 Migration Policy Institute report: “Over the course of four years, the Trump administration set an unprecedented pace for executive action on immigration, enacting 472 administrative changes that dismantled and reconstructed many elements of the U.S. immigration system. Humanitarian protections were severely diminished. The U.S.-Mexico border became more closed off. Immigration enforcement appeared more random. And legal immigration became out of reach for many. All of this was accomplished nearly exclusively by the executive branch, with sweeping presidential proclamations and executive orders, departmental policy guidance, and hundreds of small, technical adjustments. Congress, which has been deadlocked on immigration legislation for years, largely sidelined itself during this period of incredibly dynamic policy change.”

As the report details, Trump increased enforcement along the border, limited asylum eligibility, significantly reduced the admission of refugees and pressured Mexico to increase its own immigration enforcement. In one example, Trump instituted changes to the Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, so that asylum seekers were sent to Mexico to await their court appearances in the U.S.

The COVID-19 outbreak afforded Trump further opportunity to check illegal immigration, as his administration started using Title 42, a public health law that allowed border officials to immediately return Mexican migrants caught trying to enter the country illegally. With the pandemic officially over, the Biden administration finally lifted Title 42 in early May.

“The Trump administration was arguably the first to take full advantage of the executive branch’s vast authority on immigration,” the MPI report states. “Despite the relative fragility of executive actions when compared to legislation, the pace and comprehensiveness of the moves taken by Trump and his administration likely ensure that some will have lasting effects on the U.S. immigration system long after his time in office. At the very least, the Trump administration set a precedent for conducting far-reaching immigration changes through executive activism.”

Whether those policies worked is a matter of debate. As we noted in our story, “Trump’s Final Numbers,” the number of apprehensions for illegal border crossings fluctuated wildly during Trump’s presidency. After a steep decrease in his first year in office, apprehensions increased the following two years and were higher in Trump’s final year than all but one of the years under President Barack Obama. However, the number of apprehensions exploded after Biden took office. As we noted in our latest installment of “Biden’s Numbers,” apprehensions rose 342% when comparing the 12 months ending in March to Trump’s last year in office.

Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine

In rejecting price controls on pharmaceutical drugs, Christie left the misleading impression that Pfizer alone had developed a COVID-19 vaccine and U.S. residents were the first to get access to it because Pfizer benefited from the U.S. free-market system.

In fact, Pfizer partnered with BioNTech, a German-based company, on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, which became available at the same time in several countries, including the U.S., Canada and the European Union’s 27 member countries.

Christie, June 6: When COVID happened, the American people got the treatments first and the vaccines first, because we lived here. Because we have a pharmaceutical industry in this country and that we support in this country that is changing the face of medical treatment here and throughout the world. But we get it first. And we get it first because places like Pfizer invested billions of dollars of their own money, not government money, they didn’t take any government money, billions of dollars of their own money on a technology that they didn’t even exactly know how they were going to use it. And then when COVID came, the mRNA technology they were using turned out to be able to help significantly in getting rid of the pandemic we had in this country.

So I’m very concerned about us going to a system like Canada or Great Britain, where we control prices, fix prices, and we fix profits, because then there’s no reason to take risk.

While it’s true that Pfizer didn’t receive any U.S. government funding for COVID-19 vaccine trials or research and development, its partner did receive government funding from Germany. BioNTech received $445 million from the German government in September 2020 to accelerate development of its COVID-19 vaccine candidates.

Christie didn’t mention BioNTech, but it was the German company that developed the novel messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccine against COVID-19. “We believe that by pairing Pfizer’s development, regulatory and commercial capabilities with BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine technology and expertise as one of the industry leaders, we are reinforcing our commitment to do everything we can to combat this escalating pandemic, as quickly as possible,” a top Pfizer executive said in a March 2020 statement announcing the collaboration.

Also, Pfizer and BioNTech benefited from years of U.S. government-funded research into the platform used by the companies to successfully develop a COVID-19 vaccine. (Moderna also benefited from the U.S.-funded research for its mRNA vaccine.)

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which is within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “has for years invested in the messenger RNA (or mRNA) platform for vaccine development, the technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines,” the journal Health Affairs wrote in May 2021. “Since 2006, Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars that BARDA used to develop the scientific infrastructure to produce vaccines in response to the threat of pandemic flu. Thus, the basic research undergirding the COVID-19 vaccines was largely publicly supported.”

Lastly, Christie’s suggestion that Pfizer made the vaccine available to U.S. residents first is incorrect.

On July 22, 2020, Pfizer/BioNTech signed an agreement with the U.S. to deliver up to 600 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. A press release said, “The U.S. government will pay the companies $1.95 billion upon the receipt of the first 100 million doses, following FDA authorization or approval. The U.S. government also can acquire up to an additional 500 million doses.”

Pfizer/BioNTech soon signed agreements with Canada and the EU. The distribution of the vaccines depended on government authorization of the vaccine. Canada authorized the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Dec. 7, 2020, followed by the U.S. (Dec. 11, 2020) and the EU (Dec. 21, 2020).

It was this guarantee of a large market for COVID-19 vaccines that made the development of a vaccine financially attractive and less risky.

Canada and the U.S. started to administer Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines on the same day in Dec. 14, 2020, and the EU began its vaccination program later that month.

Obama’s Aid to Ukraine

While talking about “foreign policy mistakes” made by past U.S. presidents, Christie repeated the claim that Obama only provided Ukraine with “blankets” and “human rights aid” after Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea region and began seizing territory in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

“That’s how we get to the next mistake, which was, in my view, Barack Obama allowing the continued encroachment on Ukrainian territory by the Russians and doing nothing,” Christie said. “Nothing but sending them blankets, and, you know, human rights aid. No weapons to defend themselves. Well, the Russians took that as a signal we’re not going to stand up for them.”

Obama did resist calls from Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko to provide Ukraine with lethal weaponry. But, as we’ve written before, the U.S. did supply the country with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of nonlethal military and security aid. A January 2017 report from the Congressional Research Service said the U.S. gave over $1.3 billion in foreign assistance to Ukraine since armed hostilities with Russia arose in late 2013, including more than $600 million since 2014 in security aid.

Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the time, detailed some of the security aid to Ukraine in March 2016 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. For example, she said the U.S. had provided military training, communications equipment, vehicles, night-vision goggles and counter-mortar radar to detect incoming artillery fire.

Biden’s ‘Minor Incursion’ Remark

Later, Christie said that another “problem” was Biden’s January 2022 comments about what the U.S. and other NATO allies would do if Russia made a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.

“Joe Biden comes in, who appears weak, and said right in the beginning of his presidency, ‘Well, a small incursion probably wouldn’t be a problem,’” Christie claimed. “Well, here’s the problem everybody: Everybody’s definition of small is different. Vladimir Putin’s definition of small was, ‘I will take it all.’”

Christie was referring to remarks Biden made in a White House press conference about a month before Russia launched its attack on Ukraine in late February.

“I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades,” Biden said. “And it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, etc. But if they actually do what they’re capable of doing with the forces amassed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further … invade Ukraine, and that our allies and partners are ready to impose severe costs and significant harm on Russia and the Russian economy.”

When another reporter asked him to clarify his comments, Biden said: “I think we will, if there’s something … where there’s Russian forces crossing the border, killing Ukrainian fighters, etc. — I think that changes everything. But it depends on what he [Putin] does, as to the exact — to what extent we’re going to be able to get total unity … on the NATO front.”

After the press conference, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki released a statement that attempted to further explain what he meant.

“President Biden has been clear with the Russian President: If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, that’s a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our Allies,” the statement said. It also noted that Russian “aggression short of military action, including cyberattacks and paramilitary tactics … will be met with a decisive, reciprocal, and united response.”

Trump’s New Hampshire Town Halls

Taking another shot at Trump, Christie falsely claimed that Trump, during the 2016 campaign, didn’t have town hall events in New Hampshire like the one Christie did on June 6.

“Did Donald Trump come to New Hampshire seven years ago and stand in the middle of the room, and take any question from anybody without knowing who you were, or what your question was going to be?” Christie asked those in the crowd. “Oh, no! He went over to the hockey arena and stood in front of a large crowd and gave his normal speech. Waited for all of you to cheer and chant his name, and then he left. Got on his airplane and went home to sleep in his apartment in New York.”

But Trump held a few town halls in New Hampshire during his first campaign for president — even if they were not as long as the one Christie did to start his 2024 campaign.

During the GOP primary, Trump took questions at town hall-style events in Rochester and Londonderry. Just before the GOP convention, he had a town hall in Manchester. Then during the general election, he had at least one other in Sandown.

Trump appeared to be selecting people randomly during some of the events. An NBC News story about the town hall in Manchester said “the audience was able to ask unvetted questions.” That resulted in “a number of wild questions” being asked, the story said.

The Sandown town hall was moderated by a conservative radio show host, Howie Carr, who wrote that he “sorted through all the index cards with the questions from the audience, selecting the ones I wanted to use.”

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Former President Donald Trump misleadingly said that “under Biden’s current policies” children born to parents in the country illegally automatically become citizens. That’s not a Biden policy, but rather it has been the standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment going back more than 100 years, including under Trump.

In a video posted to Truth Social, Trump revived an old promise, saying that on Day 1 of a new term as president, he would issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born to parents in the country illegally. But as we wrote when Trump vowed to — but never did — issue such an executive order when he was president, most legal scholars believe such a change would require a constitutional amendment.

Trump said his order would also end the practice of so-called birth tourism, “where hundreds of thousands of people from all over the planet squat in hotels for their last few weeks of pregnancy to illegitimately and illegally obtain U.S. citizenship for the child.” Some experts say this happens far less frequently than Trump claimed.

Ending birthright citizenship has been on Trump’s radar for years. When he was running for president back in 2015, Trump told then Fox News host Bill O’Reilly the issue has been “fully vetted now” and all that would be needed to end birthright citizenship was “an act of Congress.” But as we wrote at the time, most constitutional and immigration scholars said such a change would require a constitutional amendment, which is a higher bar than simple legislation. But, we noted, there were a few who agreed with Trump.

Fast forward three years to 2018 and Trump, then serving as president, said in an interview with Axios that he was told by White House counsel that actually, birthright citizenship wouldn’t even need to be changed with legislation, that he could do it simply with an executive order. We wrote then that most constitutional scholars said he couldn’t do it via executive order, or if he did, it would likely be overturned by the courts.

Nonetheless, Trump said such an order was “in the process” and “it’ll happen.” But it didn’t.

A year later, in August 2019, Trump again told reporters he was “looking … very, very seriously” at issuing an executive order to end birthright citizenship. But again, he never actually did it.

In late November 2020, after Trump had lost the election, members of his administration said the president was considering finally issuing an executive action in the weeks before leaving office that would seek to end birthright citizenship. It didn’t happen.

In other words, when he had the opportunity as president, Trump spoke multiple times about issuing an executive order to end birthright citizenship, but he never pulled the trigger. Now, in a video posted to Truth Social, Trump said if reelected, he would make such an order a priority on his first day back in the Oval Office.

Trump, May 30: Under Biden’s current policies, even though these millions of illegal border crossers have entered the country unlawfully, all of their future children will become automatic U.S. citizens. Can you imagine? They’ll be eligible for welfare, taxpayer-funded health care, the right to vote, chain migration and countless other government benefits, many of which will also profit the illegal alien parents. This policy is a reward for breaking the laws of the United States and it is obviously a magnet helping draw the flood of illegals across our borders. … As has been laid out by many scholars, this current policy is based on an historical myth and a willful misinterpretation of the law by the open borders advocates. …

As part of my plan to secure the border on Day 1 of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship.

Trump packed a lot into his statement, so let’s take it in pieces.

Trump said that “under Biden’s current policies” children born to parents in the country illegally automatically become citizens. That’s not a Biden policy, but rather it has been the standing policy going back more than 100 years.

According to the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.”

The idea was to grant citizenship to recently freed slaves. But the 14th Amendment also forms the basis of the country’s longstanding policy of granting birthright citizenship to anyone born on American soil.

Trump went on to say that “millions and millions and millions” of people come into the U.S. illegally, adding, “They come from mental institutions, they come from jails, prisoners.” This echoes comments Trump has made repeatedly on the campaign trail — that South American countries are emptying their prisons and “mental institutions” and sending those people to the U.S. But as we have written, immigration experts say there’s simply no evidence of that, and Trump has offered no backup.

Trump then said the U.S. “is among the only countries in the world” that extend citizenship to babies born in their country when neither parent is a citizen. But as we have written, a 2010 analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates lower immigration, found that 30 of the world’s 194 countries grant automatic birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants in the country illegally. The U.S. and Canada are the only ones among those 30 countries that have advanced economies as defined by the International Monetary Fund. Outside North America, most of the 30 counties that have birthright citizenship policies are in Central and South America. No country in Europe has such a policy. Although Trump has said Mexico doesn’t have a policy like the U.S., it is actually pretty similar.

In his campaign video, Trump argued that the standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment bestowing citizenship to children born in the country even though their parents are in the U.S. illegally is — according to “many scholars” — “based on an historical myth and a willful misinterpretation of the law by the open borders advocates.” Trump said his executive order will make “clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship.”

Although Trump said “there aren’t that many of them around” who interpret the 14th Amendment to confer birthright citizenship to a child whose parents are in the country illegally, that’s not accurate. As we have written, that’s actually the opinion of most constitutional scholars.

The birthright citizenship portion of the amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1898 in the case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which involved a man, Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to parents who were citizens of China but legally living in the United States. (There was no such thing as illegal immigration at the time.) Some argue that while that settles the issue of whether the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to children born to parents in the country legally, it doesn’t necessarily settle the issue regarding children born in the U.S. to parents in the country illegally.

Another Supreme Court involvement on the issue is a footnote in a 1982 decision in the case Plyler v. Doe, which dealt with the issue of whether states must provide education to children not “legally admitted” into the United States. In that case, Justice William Brennan, writing the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision, stated that “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”

In a 2015 op-ed in the New York Times, John Eastman, a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, argued that the longstanding policy of extending citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to parents in the country illegally was based on a misunderstanding of the 14th Amendment and its limitation to people born in the U.S. who are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

In 2018, Eastman told us that phrase precludes granting birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants in the country illegally, and he encouraged Trump to clarify that through an executive order. (Two years later, after the 2020 election, Trump hired Eastman, who was described in the final report from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol as one of the principal planners of an effort to overturn the certified presidential election results.)

But as we have said, most constitutional scholars don’t agree that a president can change the longstanding birthright citizenship policy via executive order. As we wrote in 2015, most constitutional experts think such a change would require a constitutional amendment. To achieve that, the change would have to be proposed by a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate, and then it would need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

As we noted then, at least some constitutional scholars think a change could be achieved simply through federal legislation passed by Congress. Some legislators have tried unsuccessfully for years to pass a bill to end birthright citizenship for children of adults in the country illegally, and some of those bills implicitly assume the issue can be solved without a constitutional amendment.

Most recently, Republican Rep. Brian Babin introduced the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2021. The bill sought to redefine what it means to be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States so that birthright citizenship would only apply to a child born to a parent who is “(1) a citizen or national of the United States; (2) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States; or (3) an alien performing active service in the armed forces.” The bill, which had 31 Republican co-sponsors, never came up for a vote.

In 1995, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion that suggests Trump would be on dubious legal ground, as would even an attempt to change the policy through legislation.

According to then-Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger, “A bill that would deny citizenship to children born in the United States to certain classes of alien parents is unconstitutional on its face.”

“The phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ was meant to reflect the existing common law exception for discrete sets of persons who were deemed subject to a foreign sovereign and immune from U.S. laws, principally children born in the United States of foreign diplomats, with the single additional exception of children of members of Indian tribes,” Dellinger wrote. “Apart from these extremely limited exceptions, there can be no question that children born in the United States of aliens are subject to the full jurisdiction of the United States.”

Ultimately, though, if Trump were to issue an executive order as president, it would likely be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether it passes constitutional muster.

Birth Tourism

In his campaign announcement, Trump also pledged that he would end the practice of so-called birth tourism via executive order.

Trump had similarly pledged to do this as president, but never did. Rather, his administration issued a rule in 2020 for the State Department, directing staff to deny nonimmigrant visas to women if there is a “reason to believe” they intend to travel to the U.S. for the primary purpose of obtaining citizenship for a child by giving birth in the U.S.

In his campaign announcement, Trump claimed “hundreds of thousands of people” have participated in birth tourism.

“My order will also end their unfair practice known as birth tourism, where hundreds of thousands of people from all over the planet squat in hotels for the last few weeks of pregnancy to illegitimately and illegally obtain U.S. citizenship for the child, often to later exploit chain migration to jump the line and get green cards for themselves and their family members,” Trump said in his campaign video. “It’s a practice that’s so horrible and so egregious, but we let it go forward. At least one parent will have to be a citizen or a legal resident in order to qualify.”

Trump’s campaign website provided a yearly figure, saying that “tens of thousands of foreign nationals fraudulently enter the U.S. each year during the final weeks of their pregnancies for the sole purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for their child.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to our inquiry seeking support for these figures, but it seems likely they come from the Center for Immigration Studies, which estimates there are 20,000 to 26,000 possible birth tourists a year.

If Trump were looking at a period of, say, 10 years, then his estimate of “hundreds of thousands” of birth tourists could be accurate, Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, told us in a phone interview. But Camarota acknowledged the CIS estimate was based on data that was not limited only to women coming to the U.S. “for the last few weeks of pregnancy,” as Trump said.

Jeremy Neufeld, a senior immigration fellow at the Institute for Progress, took issue with the methodology underpinning Camarota’s estimates in a March 2020 blog post.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services does not provide a definitive count on birth tourism. Short of that, Neufeld told us the best estimate of birth tourism numbers comes from data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC reports that there were 5,636 children born to foreign nonresidents in 2021. That annual figure was likely lower due to the pandemic; the CDC data indicate there were 10,042 children born to foreign nonresidents in 2019.

Camarota believes those figures significantly underestimate birth tourism because, he said, most mothers will list an address in the U.S. — rather than their foreign address — and remain in the U.S. until they are able to obtain a Social Security card, birth certificate and passport for their child. And so, he said, they are not captured in the CDC data.

Neufeld believes the CDC numbers are still the best estimate for the magnitude of birth tourism.

“The CDC numbers aren’t perfect — no numbers are — but I’ve never seen any evidence they’re more likely to be too low than too high,” Neufeld said. “Yes, they may miss birth tourists who lie about their residence, but they also include people who never intended to give birth in the US or are in the process of getting residency. Which of these effects is bigger? Nobody really knows.” 

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Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina announced on May 22 that he will seek the Republican nomination for president in 2024. We reviewed his speech — and an exclusive NBC News interview he did shortly after — and found that he made a few claims that were false, misleading or lacked important context.

• Scott said that, under President Joe Biden, “millions” have left “the workforce entirely” and “the share of working age men choosing to work” is at its “lowest.” But both the civilian labor force level and the male labor force participation rate have increased.

• He left the false impression that preventing illegal immigration would “stop fentanyl from crossing our border.” Most drug seizures at the border occur during traffic stops at legal ports of entry.

• In talking about the southern border, Scott said “hundreds of people on our terrorist watchlist are crossing our borders.” Since fiscal 2021, 209 people on the watchlist have been stopped trying to cross illegally on the southern border. But hundreds more have been stopped at legal ports on the northern border.

• Scott said Biden “wants to make waitresses and mechanics pay for the student loans of lawyers and doctors making six figures.” While some doctors and lawyers earning over $100,000 would be eligible for loan cancellation under Biden’s plan, the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that about two-thirds of the benefits would accrue to households making $88,000 or less.

Labor Force

Since Biden took office, the number of people in the civilian labor force has increased, and the labor force participation rate for men also has gone up. But Scott gave the opposite impression in his speech from Charleston, South Carolina.

“Under President Biden, our nation is retreating away from work and dignity,” Scott said. “Millions and millions of people have dropped out of the workforce entirely, and the share of working age men choosing to work is the lowest it has ever been.”

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the civilian labor force, which includes all people over 16 who are working or actively looking for work, has gone up under Biden. As of April, there were almost 166.7 million people in the labor force — which is up from 160 million in January 2021, when Biden was sworn in as president, and 164.5 million in February 2020, which was the last month before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared.

The labor force participation rate for men 16 and older also has increased while Biden has been in office. Their participation rate was 68.1% in April. That’s higher than the rate of 67.4% in January 2021 and the rate of 66.1% in April 2020, which was the lowest rate for men going back to 1948.

The rate in April was still below the pre-pandemic level of 69.1% in February 2020, but the participation rate among males generally has been declining since the late 1940s, according to BLS figures, as shown in this chart from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

In a 2021 report, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond wrote that “the general consensus of research” was that male labor force participation had been declining for several reasons, including “a shift in U.S. industry structure, a decline in male educational attainment, delayed family formation, the rise of substance abuse, and heavy use of video games.” The aging of the male population also was a factor, the article said.

Furthermore, the labor force participation rate for men ages 25 to 54 — which is sometimes called the prime working age — was 89.2% in April. That’s up from 87.6% when Biden’s presidency began, and it’s equal to the rate in February 2020, just before COVID-19 economic shutdowns sent the rate down to 86.4% two months later.

Finally, the unemployment rates for men 16 and over, and men 25 to 54, were the same in April as they were in February 2020 – 3.5% and 3.1%, respectively. Those respective figures were down from 6.4% and 5.8% in January 2021.

Fentanyl

In his interview on NBC News after he announced his candidacy, Scott left the false impression that building a wall along the southern border and taking other steps to prevent people from illegally entering the country can “stop fentanyl from crossing our border.”

“Closing that southern border saves perhaps tens of thousands of American lives. 70,000 Americans have lost their lives in a single year because of fentanyl,” Scott said. “Building the wall, using the latest and greatest technology that’s available today, about $5 billion, will provide more surveillance on our southern border to stop fentanyl from crossing our border.”

Scott is right about the number of deaths from fentanyl — a powerful synthetic opioid that is responsible for a growing increase in the number of drug overdoses in the U.S. that predates Biden’s presidency. Synthetic opioids – primarily fentanyl and fentanyl analogues – have been the leading cause of overdose deaths since 2016 and continue to rise, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

In 2021, there were more than 71,000 fatal overdoses from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, up from nearly 58,000 in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2022, there were a record 109,680 overdose deaths, including 76% that involved opioids, according to CDC’s preliminary estimate. 

But Scott is wrong to suggest that stopping people from illegally entering the country can “stop fentanyl from crossing our border.”

As we have written before, most drug seizures at the border occur during traffic stops at legal ports of entry.

“Generally, intelligence suggests that more foreign-produced cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl flow into the country through official ports of entry (POEs) than between the ports,” the Congressional Research Service said in a 2020 report (emphasis is in the report). “Seizure data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) follows this pattern as well.”

Mexican cartels use “a variety of methods to transport heroin, fentanyl, and other illicit opioids into the United States,” but private vehicles, “rental vehicles, and trucks/tractor trailers” are “the most commonly used modes of transport,” the Drug Enforcement Administration said in its 2020 threat assessment report.

As CRS says, CBP seizure data suggest that fentanyl is largely entering the U.S. through legal ports of entry.

Through the first seven months of fiscal year 2023, 15,500 pounds of fentanyl were seized at legal ports of entry by the Office of Field Operations. By contrast, the U.S. Border Patrol seized 1,500 pounds of fentanyl in between the legal ports of entry.

Terrorist Watchlist

Scott linked immigration at the southern border to the terrorist watchlist. But his remarks require some context.

“And if our southern border is unsafe and insecure, it’s not our country,” Scott said in his speech. “Hundreds of people on our terrorist watchlist are crossing our borders.”

Voters may be surprised to learn that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered more people on the terrorist watchlist trying to enter at legal ports of entry on the northern border in recent years than those apprehended trying to cross the southern border illegally.

The statistics from Customs and Border Protection show the number of people caught trying to enter the U.S. who are on the Terrorist Screening Dataset, commonly called the watchlist, which includes “known or suspected terrorists” and “additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals,” CBP says. There aren’t statistics on watchlisted individuals who may not have been stopped by CBP.

In the past three years, CBP has seen an increase in non-U.S. citizen watchlist individuals on the southern border between ports of entry, in other words attempting to enter the U.S. illegally. In fiscal year 2021, which ended on Sept. 30, 2021, the number was 15 people; in fiscal year 2022, it was 98, and so far in fiscal 2023, 96 watchlist individuals have been stopped. That totals 209 people, just making Scott’s description of “hundreds” — though he doesn’t explicitly say he’s only talking about illegal immigration.

For fiscal years 2017 through 2020, the number encountered on the southern border between ports of entry totaled only 11.

Of course, the total number of people apprehended while trying to cross the southern border has also gone up considerably during the Biden administration, as we recently explained.

But CBP’s data show the larger issue has been watchlist individuals encountered at legal ports of entry, particularly at the northern border.

In fiscal 2022, there were 313 watchlist encounters at legal ports of entry on the northern border. This may include some U.S. citizens, since CBP notes these are from “all nationalities.” It also says these figures “may include multiple encounters of the same individual.”

Since fiscal 2017, the year with the highest number of watchlist encounters overall was fiscal 2019, with 541 — all but three of these encounters were at legal ports of entry on both the northern and southern border.

The chart below shows the breakdown of these figures.

The last line shows that those encountered between ports of entry are a tiny percentage of all people stopped by U.S. Border Patrol. “Encounters of watchlisted individuals at our borders are very uncommon,” CBP says.

Student Loan Forgiveness

Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was crafted in a way to ensure that the majority of debt cancellation goes to middle- and lower-income households. Nonetheless, some relatively high-income professionals would get relief, and to the extent all taxpayers are on the hook for the cost of Biden’s plan, moderate-income people could be paying a share of loan forgiveness for some high-income earners.

Scott exploited those possibilities when he said that Biden “wants to make waitresses and mechanics pay for the student loans of lawyers and doctors making six figures.”

It’s true that some doctors and lawyers would benefit from Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, but Biden’s plan has some eligibility requirements that would limit the number who would stand to gain.

Under the plan Biden unveiled in August 2022, individuals making less than $125,000 or married couples making less than $250,000 would be eligible for up to $10,000 in debt cancellation. Another $10,000 could be waived for some people under those income caps who also received federal Pell Grants, which are awarded to students based on financial need.

People with advanced degrees — like those required to be a doctor or lawyer — tend to have more student debt, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute. But they also are more likely to earn more, and are less likely to be eligible for Biden’s proposed loan forgiveness due to the income caps.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual pay for lawyers in 2021 was about $128,000. It was at least $208,000 for physicians and surgeons. So right off the bat, most doctors and many lawyers would be ineligible for student loan forgiveness because they earn too much money. Nonetheless, some doctors and lawyers earning six figures would still be eligible.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model concluded that Biden’s debt cancellation plan would cost between $469 billion and $519 billion over 10 years. To the extent that all taxpayers would shoulder that cost, some waitresses and mechanics would pay for loan cancellation for some doctors and lawyers.

However, the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that about two-thirds of the benefits of student loan forgiveness would accrue to households making $88,000 or less in 2021. A little more than 8% would accrue to households that earned between $141,096 and $212,209 (those in the 80th to 90th percentile). Households making more than that would see 1.7% of the loan cancellation benefits.

Biden’s plan is on hold as it is being challenged in the courts. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on two cases by the end of June.

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Summary

Here’s how things have changed in the U.S. so far under President Joe Biden, who announced on April 25 that he is officially running for reelection:

• The economy added 12.6 million jobs under Biden, putting the total 3.2 million higher than before the pandemic.

• The unemployment rate dropped back to 3.5%; unfilled job openings surged, with nearly 1.7 for every unemployed job seeker.

• Inflation roared back to the highest level in over 40 years, then slowed markedly. In all, consumer prices are up nearly 15%. Gasoline is up 54%.

• Weekly earnings rose briskly, by 11.3%. But after adjusting for inflation, “real” weekly earnings went down 3.6%.

• People apprehended for entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico has increased by 342%.

• Domestic crude oil production has increased 5.7%, and crude oil imports are up almost 6.7%.

• The economy grew at 2.1% last year, despite high inflation and concerns about a possible recession.

• The population without health insurance dropped by 1.6 percentage points.

• The number of people receiving federal food assistance has increased by about 1.2%.

• Despite a decline in 2022, the number of murders in 70 large U.S. cities has now gone up by 1.6%.

• The stock markets have underperformed. The S&P 500-stock index is up nearly 7% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up almost 8%, while the NASDAQ composite index is down 10.2%.

Analysis

This is our sixth installment of “Biden’s Numbers,” which we started in January 2022 and have updated since then every three months.

As we have done for former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, we’ve included the latest statistics from the most authoritative sources to provide a sense of how the country is performing. These statistics may or may not reflect the president’s policies. We make no attempt to render any judgments on how much blame or credit a president deserves. Opinions will vary on that.

Our next Biden’s Numbers article will appear in July.

Jobs and Unemployment

The number of people with jobs has increased dramatically since Biden took office, far surpassing pre-pandemic levels.

Employment — The U.S. economy added 12,600,000 jobs between Biden’s inauguration and March, the latest month for which data are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The March figure is 3,198,000 higher than the February 2020 peak of employment before COVID-19 forced massive shutdowns and layoffs.

One major category of jobs is still lagging, however. Government employment is still 314,000 jobs short of the pre-pandemic peak. That includes 130,000 fewer public school teachers and other local education workers. 

Unemployment — The unemployment rate fell from 6.3% at the time Biden took office to 3.5% in March — a decline of 2.8 percentage points. The current rate is exactly where it was in the months just before the pandemic.

That’s uncommonly low. Since 1948, when BLS began keeping records, the jobless rate has been at or below 3.5% for only 61 months — including five months during Biden’s time and three months during the Trump years, just before the pandemic. Previously, the rate hadn’t been so low since the 1960s.

Job Openings — The number of unfilled job openings soared, reaching a record of over 12 million in March of last year, but then declined after the Federal Reserve began a steep series of interest rate increases aimed at cooling the economy to bring down price inflation.

The number of unfilled jobs has slipped down to just 9.9 million as of the last business day of February, the most recent month on record. That’s still an increase of over 2.8 million openings — or 38.4% — during Biden’s time.

In February, there was an average of nearly 1.7 jobs for every unemployed job seeker. When Biden took office, there were fewer jobs than unemployed job seekers.

The number of job openings in March is set to be released May 2.

Labor Force Participation — One reason many job openings go unfilled is that millions of Americans left the workforce during the pandemic and haven’t returned. The labor force participation rate (the percentage of the total population over age 16 that is either employed or actively seeking work) has slowly recovered during Biden’s time, from 61.3% in January 2021 to 62.6% in March.

That still leaves the rate well short of the pre-pandemic level of 63.3% for February 2020.

The rate peaked at 67.3% more than two decades ago, during the first four months of 2000. Labor Department economists project that the rate will trend down to 60.1% in 2031, “primarily because of an aging population.”

Manufacturing Jobs — During the presidential campaign, Biden promised he had a plan to create a million new manufacturing jobs — and whether it’s his doing or not, the number is rising briskly.

As of March, the U.S. added 787,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s time, a 6.5% increase in the space of 26 months, according to BLS. Furthermore, the March total is 198,000 or 1.5% above the number of manufacturing jobs in February 2020, before the pandemic forced plant closures and layoffs.

During Trump’s four years, the economy lost 182,000 manufacturing jobs, or 1.4%, largely due to the pandemic.

Wages and Inflation

CPI — Inflation came roaring back under Biden but has slowed dramatically in recent months.

Overall, during his first 26 months in office the Consumer Price Index rose 14.9%.

It was for a time the worst inflation in decades. The 12 months ending last June saw a 9.1% increase in the CPI (before seasonal adjustment), which the Bureau of Labor Statistics said was the biggest such increase since the 12 months ending in November 1981.

But now inflation is trending down. The CPI rose 5.0% in the most recent 12 months, 1.8% in the most recent six months and only 0.1% in March.

Gasoline Prices — The price of gasoline has gyrated wildly under Biden.

During the first year and a half of his administration, the national average price of regular gasoline at the pump soared to a record high of just over $5 per gallon (in the week ending last June 13). The rise was propelled first by motorists resuming travel and the commerce surging back after pandemic lockdowns, and then by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, which disrupted oil markets as the West attempted to punish Russia, the world’s third-largest oil producer. 

Since then, the price drifted down to a low of $3.09 the week ending Dec. 26, and now has gone up again to $3.66 the week ending April 24, the most recent on record.

That’s $1.28 higher than in the week before Biden took office, an increase of 54%.

Wages — Wages also have gone up under Biden, but not as fast as prices.

Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers went up 11.3% during Biden’s first 26 months in office, according to monthly figures compiled by the BLS. Those production and nonsupervisory workers make up 81% of all employees in the private sector.

But inflation ate up all that gain and more. “Real” weekly earnings, which are adjusted for inflation and measured in dollars valued at their average level in 1982-84, actually declined 3.6% since Biden took office.

That’s despite a recent upturn as inflation has moderated. Since June of last year, real earnings have gone up 1.1%.

Economic Growth

Despite two straight quarters of contraction at the beginning of 2022 and fears of a recession, the U.S. economy expanded for the full year in 2022 and continued to grow in the first quarter of 2023.

The U.S. real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product increased 2.1% in 2022 — buoyed by stronger-than-expected third and fourth quarters.

In a March 30 release, the Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that real GDP increased in the third quarter at an annualized rate of 3.2% and in the fourth quarter at a rate of 2.6%.

The growth continued in the first quarter of 2023, but at a slower pace. In its first estimate issued April 27, the BEA said the economy increased at an annual rate of 1.1% in the first quarter.

Still, concerns about a recession remain.

The Conference Board, a nonpartisan business membership and research organization, estimates that the probability of a recession within the next 12 months stands at nearly 99%.

“While US GDP growth defied expectations in late 2022 and early 2023 data has shown unexpected strength, we continue to forecast that GDP growth to contract for three consecutive quarters starting in Q2 2023,” the Conference Board said in an April 12 report on its U.S. recession probability model, citing “the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes and tightening monetary policy.”

In a sustained effort to slow inflation, the Federal Reserve has repeatedly raised interest rates — most recently on March 22, when it raised rates for the ninth time in 12 months.

Corporate Profits

Under Biden, corporate profits continued to set new records — although recent quarters haven’t been as strong.

After-tax corporate profits increased for the seventh consecutive year in 2022, reaching a new high of $2.87 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The record, though, came despite a decline in growth in the last two quarters of the year.

During the third quarter of 2022, corporate profits were estimated at an annual rate of nearly $2.9 trillion — down slightly from the $3 trillion record set in the previous quarter, according to the BEA. That slide continued in the fourth quarter, when profits were running at a yearly rate of $2.7 trillion.

Even with the recent decline in growth, corporate profits were 36% higher than the full-year figure for 2020, the year before Biden took office, as estimated by the BEA. (See line 45.)

Consumer Sentiment

Consumer confidence in the economy remains stubbornly low, even falling a bit since our last report. 

The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers reported that its preliminary monthly Index of Consumer Sentiment for April was 63.5. That’s down slightly from our last report – despite a slight easing recently in consumer prices — and 15.5 points lower than it was when Biden took office in January 2021.

“While consumers have noted the easing of inflation among durable goods and cars, they still expect high inflation to persist, at least in the short run,” Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, said. “On net, consumers did not perceive material changes in the economic environment in April.”

Stock Markets

Under the past two presidents, the stock markets rose sharply. But that hasn’t been the case under Biden.

Since Biden took office, the S&P 500 stock index is up about 6.8% as of the close of the market on April 26.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is made up of 30 large corporations, hasn’t done much better, increasing 7.7%.

And the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite index, made up of more than 3,000 companies, is down 10.2% since Biden took office, despite a surprisingly strong first quarter. Year to date, NASDAQ is up 13.3%.

Health Insurance

The latest figures from the National Health Interview Survey show that 8.7% of the population was uninsured in the third quarter of 2022 at the time they were interviewed. That compares with 10.3% of the population that was uninsured in the fourth quarter of 2020, before Biden took office.

That decrease of 1.6 percentage points is similar to the decrease we noted in our last report comparing all of 2020 to the first six months of 2022. Over that time frame, the number of people without health insurance declined by 4.2 million.

The NHIS is a program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the data collection is performed by the Census Bureau in face-to-face interviews.

It’s possible the number, and percentage, of uninsured Americans will start to go up, now that some Medicaid provisions enacted during the coronavirus pandemic are being phased out.

As the Kaiser Family Foundation explains, in March 2020, a pandemic relief law increased the federal Medicaid funding sent to states and required states to keep Medicaid recipients continuously enrolled while the COVID-19 public health emergency was in effect. The Medicaid program is known for “churn,” meaning people lose coverage and reenroll often. This could be due to fluctuations in income that change eligibility or inability to comply with renewal requirements and checks on eligibility.

This continuous enrollment provision was one reason Medicaid enrollment has grown over the last few years, reaching nearly 95 million at the end of March. But this requirement ended on March 31, due to another law Congress passed late last year, and the enhanced federal funding during the pandemic will slowly phase out through the end of this year. KFF estimates that between 5.3 million and 14.2 million people will be disenrolled during this time. The Department of Health and Human Services says the number could be as high as 15 million, 6.8 million of whom would still be eligible for Medicaid.

Some who lose Medicaid coverage could be eligible for subsidized plans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges or other insurance, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services required states to come up with plans on how they might mitigate loss of insurance during this so-called “unwinding” period. But KFF says the change in policy could lead to an increase in the number of people who lack health insurance.

Immigration

The number of apprehensions of people trying to enter the U.S. illegally at the southwest border remains historically high, but since our last report in January, the situation has changed markedly. In part due to seasonal trends and policies implemented by the Biden administration, the number of apprehensions significantly declined in January and February — to numbers not seen since shortly after Biden took office.

On March 24, Biden boasted that “the number of migrants arriving on our southern border has dropped precipitously.”

The number of apprehensions rose in March, but still remained well below the number from March 2022. However, an immigration expert cautioned the U.S. may be seeing the “calm before the storm” should the Biden administration end Title 42, a public health law the Trump administration invoked early in the pandemic that allows border officials to immediately return many of those caught trying to enter the country illegally.

Looking at the entirety of Biden’s time in office, and to even out the seasonal changes in border crossings, we compare the most recent 12 months on record with the year prior to him taking office. And for the past 12 months ending in March, the latest figures available, apprehensions totaled 2,246,798, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That’s 342% higher than during Trump’s last year in office.

Apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol hit 221,710 in December, the second highest monthly total on record. But in January, that number dropped nearly 42% to 128,936. And it remained about the same in February, at 130,024. (Those figures were 13% and 18% lower than the same months in 2022.) The number rose in March to 162,317, though that’s 23% below the level in March 2022.

According to Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, part of the drop was likely due to seasonal factors. January tends to be a slow month for illegal immigration, because of the holiday season across Latin America.

But Biden administration policies also played a role, he said. In early January, Biden unveiled several border enforcement initiatives that included expanding the “parole” process for Venezuelans to Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans, allowing applicants a two-year work permit if they have a sponsor in the U.S. and they pass a background check.

At the same time, the administration expanded Title 42 to include Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti, meaning people from those countries caught illegally crossing into the U.S. could be immediately expelled.

Those changes contributed to the declining number of apprehensions at the border to a more manageable level in January and February, Ruiz Soto said. But that may change dramatically if the Biden administration follows through with its plan to end Title 42 on May 11, when the policy is set to expire, he said.

“That could incentivize increased migration in April,” Ruiz Soto said, and could lead to a “significant surge” in May. If so, he said, the decline in apprehensions in January and February could prove to have been just a temporary lull.

In anticipation of the end of Title 42, the Biden administration has been increasing expedited removals under Title 8, which stipulates that someone caught trying to cross illegally is barred from legal entry for five years. Those caught attempting to cross illegally multiple times can be charged criminally.

In addition, the administration is also pursuing a rule that would mean those attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally would have a “presumption of asylum ineligibility” in the U.S. if they have failed to seek asylum in another country on their travels to the U.S.

Even with the lower numbers in January and February, the number of apprehensions remains historically very high under Biden. Part of that is due to the same people making multiple attempts to cross the border, what is known as the recidivism rate. Title 42 carries no consequences for Mexicans immediately turned around at the border, Ruiz Soto said, and so many of them try again repeatedly.

In addition, he said, there are some “push factors” encouraging migration by Mexicans. One factor is an increase in drug and cartel activity in Mexico, Ruiz Soto said. In addition, he said, “Mexico has really struggled to recover from the pandemic.”

Food Stamps

The number of people in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, increased again since our last update.

As of January, nearly 42.7 million people were receiving food assistance, the highest monthly enrollment since Biden has been in office. That figure is up 344,515 people from October, and it’s an increase of about 1.2%, or 504,274 people, from January 2021, when Biden became president. The figures come from Department of Agriculture data published this month.

Under Biden, SNAP enrollment was as low as 40.8 million in August and September 2021. Trump’s lowest month was February 2020, when the program had 36.9 million participants.

Trade Deficit

The international trade deficit has gone up under Biden.

Figures published this month by the Bureau of Economic Analysis show the U.S. imported about $909.8 billion more in goods and services than it exported over the last 12 months through February. That’s an increase of nearly $256 billion, or roughly 39%, compared with 2020.

Through the first two months of 2023, however, the trade gap in goods and services decreased $35.5 billion, or 20.3%, from the same period in 2022, the BEA said. The $945.3 billion trade deficit in 2022 was the largest on record going back to 1960.

Crude Oil Production and Imports

U.S. crude oil production averaged roughly 11.97 million barrels per day during Biden’s most recent 12 months in office (through January), according to Energy Information Administration data released in March. That was 5.7% higher than the average daily amount of crude oil produced in 2020.

Crude oil production averaged 11.88 million barrels per day throughout 2022, the EIA said. That’s the highest annual average since 2019. According to its Short-Term Energy Outlook published in April, the EIA expects crude oil production to increase to a record 12.54 million barrels per day in 2023.

Meanwhile, imports of crude oil averaged 6.27 million barrels per day in Biden’s last 12 months. That’s up nearly 6.7% from average daily imports in 2020.

The EIA projects crude oil imports will exceed exports by 2.85 million barrels per day in 2023 — which is a 6.7% increase in net imports from 2020 to 2022.

Carbon Emissions

Last year, there were about 4.96 billion metric tons of emissions from the consumption of coal, natural gas and various petroleum products, according to the EIA. That total is 1.2% more than in 2021 and 8.4% above 2020.

The EIA currently forecasts that the U.S. will have 4.79 billion metric tons of energy-related emissions in 2023. That would be a decline of 3.4% from 2022 and almost 7% below the 5.15 billion metric tons emitted pre-pandemic in 2019.

Debt and Deficits

Debt — Since our last quarterly update, the public debt, which excludes money the government owes itself, has changed only slightly. It increased $9.1 billion to over $24.6 trillion, as of April 24, bringing the total increase under Biden to $2.97 trillion. That’s 13.7% higher than it was when Biden took office — unchanged from our last report.

Deficits — So far, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the budget deficit for fiscal year 2023 is ahead of where it was at this point in fiscal 2022, when the Treasury Department said the deficit for the full fiscal cycle approached $1.38 trillion.

Through the first six months of the current fiscal year (October to March), the deficit was $1.1 trillion, or “$430 billion more than the shortfall recorded during the same period last year,” the CBO said in its most recent Monthly Budget Review.

In February, the CBO projected that the FY 2023 deficit would increase slightly to $1.41 trillion. That’s $426 billion more than it projected in May 2022, CBO said.

Gun Sales

Gun purchases appeared to decline again during the first quarter of 2023, according to numbers from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group.

The NSSF estimates gun sales by tracking the number of background checks for firearm sales based on the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System, or NICS. The NSSF-adjusted figures exclude background checks unrelated to sales, such as those required for concealed-carry permits. We rely on these figures because the federal government doesn’t collect data on gun sales.

The NSSF-adjusted NICS total for background checks during the first three months of 2023 was about 4.17 million, the group reported. That’s down more than 1% from 4.21 million in the first quarter of 2022 and almost 24% lower than the first quarter of 2021.

The first quarter figure for 2023 is about 26% lower than the almost 5.63 million during Trump’s last quarter in 2020, which was a record year for background checks for firearm sales.

Crime

The number of murders in 70 large U.S. cities went up by 1.6% from 2020 to 2022, according to the latest reports from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

The small increase reflects a decline in murders last year (down 5.1%) after two straight years of increases — a 33.4% jump from 2019 to 2020, before Biden took office (based on statistics from 67 large cities) and a much smaller 6.2% increase from 2020 to 2021, Biden’s first year in office (based on 70 large cities).

Despite last year’s decrease, the number of murders — 9,138 in 2022 — is not back down to the pre-pandemic 2019 level, which totaled 6,406, though the latter figure is based on three fewer law enforcement agencies.

AH Datalytics, an independent criminal justice data analysis group, has found murders are continuing to go down in 2023. Its work, based on publicly available information from 73 large law enforcement agencies nationwide, shows a 10.2% decline in murders as of April 26, compared with the same period last year — with more than half of the agencies’ figures updated as of this month. 

From 2020 to 2022, the Major Cities Chiefs Association also found a 7.5% increase in the number of rapes, a 1.8% rise in robberies and a 14.1% increase in aggravated assaults.

We won’t have nationwide crime figures from the FBI for 2022 until this fall. As we’ve reported in our last two Biden’s Numbers updates, the FBI estimated that “violent and property crime remained consistent between 2020 and 2021.”

There have been several mass murders in the country in the last few years, including the May 2022 killings of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and 10 people in a racially motivated attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and more recently, the killing of three children and three adults at a school in Nashville in March. In response to these mass shootings, Biden has repeatedly called for a ban on semi-automatic weapons and large capacity magazines.

The Gun Violence Archive determined there were 36 mass murders in 2022, compared with 28 in 2021, 21 in 2020 and 31 in 2019. The group defines “mass murder” as a single incident in which at least four people were killed, not including the shooter.

Another gun violence database created by Mother Jones provides a count of “mass shootings,” defined as three or more victims in a shooting in a public place. Unlike in the Gun Violence Archives database, incidents in private homes or stemming from gang activity or robberies are not included. Mother Jones found 12 mass shootings in 2022, six in 2021, two in 2020 and 10 in 2019.

The FBI maintains statistics on what it calls “active shooter” incidents, in which “one or more individuals” is “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” There were 50 active shooter incidents in 2022, 61 in 2021, 40 in 2020 and 28 in 2019.

Judiciary Appointments

Supreme Court — Biden’s Supreme Court nominees still stand at one: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was confirmed on April 7, 2022, and replaced retired Justice Stephen G. Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Trump had won confirmation for two — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — at the same point during his term.

Court of Appeals — Under Biden, 31 U.S. Court of Appeals judges have been confirmed. At the same point under Trump, 37 had been confirmed.

District Court — Biden has racked up 87 District Court confirmations, while Trump had 58 nominees confirmed at the same time during his presidency.

Two U.S. Court of Federal Claims judges also have been confirmed under Biden.

As of April 19, there were 78 federal court vacancies, with 36 nominees pending.

Home Prices & Homeownership

Home prices — The Fed’s attempts to slow inflation by repeatedly raising interest rates put the brakes on home prices last year. But the median price of existing, single-family homes has started to climb again.

The median price of an existing, single-family home sold in March was $380,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s down from a year ago ($385,400), but it’s also the second consecutive month that home prices had gone up after a seven-month slide, NAR data show.

“While prices have dropped from where they were at their peak this time last year, they are still above 2021 prices in many markets,” Lindsay McLean, the CEO of HomeLister told gobankingrates.com. “Mortgage rates have stabilized a bit and offer activity seems to be resuming, as buyers are slowly coming back to the table.”

The Fed began raising interest rates on March 16, 2022, increasing rates last month for the ninth time in 12 months.

The median price of an existing, single-family home reached a high of $420,900 in June, according to the NAR. But, as mortgage rates continued to climb, prices tumbled for seven consecutive months, dropping to $365,400 in January.

Despite the swing in prices, the March median price was 23.4% higher than it had been in January 2021, when Biden took office. Annual home prices have been rising since 2012, in large part because of a high demand and relatively low inventory, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Homeownership — Homeownership rates have remained virtually unchanged under Biden.

The homeownership rate, which the Census Bureau measures as the percentage of “occupied housing units that are owner-occupied,” was 65.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022 — similar to the 65.8% rate during Trump’s last quarter in office. (Usual word of caution: The bureau warns against making comparisons with the fourth quarter of 2020, because of pandemic-related restrictions on in-person data collection.) 

The rate peaked under Trump in the second quarter of 2020 at 67.9%. The highest homeownership rate on record was 69.2% in 2004, when George W. Bush was president.

Refugees

Biden remains far from fulfilling his ambitious campaign goal of accepting up to 125,000 refugees a year.

As president, Biden set the cap on refugee admissions for fiscal year 2023 at 125,000 – just as he did in fiscal year 2022. To achieve that goal, the administration would have to admit an average of 10,417 refugees per month.

However, in fiscal year 2022, the administration accepted only 25,465 refugees, or 2,122 per month, according to State Department data. In the first six months of fiscal year 2023, which began Oct. 1, the administration increased its monthly average, welcoming 18,429 refugees, or 3,072 per month. (See “Refugee Admissions Report” for monthly data from 2000 through 2023.)

Overall, the U.S. has admitted 53,904 refugees in Biden’s first full 26 months in office, or 2,073 refugees per month, the data show. That’s about 12% higher than the 1,845 monthly average during the four years under Trump, who significantly reduced the admission of refugees. (Technical point: For both presidents, our monthly averages include only full months in office, excluding the month of January 2017 and January 2021, when administrations overlapped.)

In its report to Congress for fiscal year 2023, the State Department said “we are beginning to make progress towards fulfilling President Biden’s ambitious admissions target.” It is true that the average monthly refugee admissions have increased under Biden. The 3,072 monthly average in the first six months of fiscal year 2023 is the highest it has been for the same six-month period since fiscal year 2017, which includes months under both Trump and his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

But if it maintains its current pace, the administration would accept 36,864 refugees in fiscal year 2023 — which is much higher than last fiscal year, but far short of Biden’s campaign goal of 125,000.

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The post Biden’s Numbers, April Update appeared first on FactCheck.org.

The nearly 50 migrants Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in September were later moved to a shelter at a military base several miles away in Massachusetts. After that, most of them found housing in other parts of the state.

The migrants were not immediately “deported” after arriving at the popular vacation island off the Massachusetts coast, as DeSantis wrongly claimed this month.

DeSantis, a Republican who may run for president in 2024, made the claim during a speech in Iowa on March 10. While discussing his state’s approach to border security, DeSantis said to cheers and applause: “We even were able to deliver 50 illegal aliens to beautiful Martha’s Vineyard. They said they were a sanctuary area. They had signs saying nobody is illegal. They said all the refugees and the illegals are welcome and then they deported them the next day. Are you kidding me?”

His statement could have given his audience the false impression that the migrants, most of whom had traveled from Venezuela, were expelled from the United States. That did not happen.

In fact, because individuals working on behalf of the DeSantis administration allegedly coerced the migrants to fly from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard under “false pretenses,” according to a Texas county sheriff, the migrants may qualify for a special immigration status for victims of certain crimes.

If approved, the migrants could stay in the U.S. to assist in a criminal investigation of the flights launched by the county sheriff’s department. After several years, they could eventually apply to become legal permanent residents.

From San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard

DeSantis took credit for using Florida funds to charter the two private planes that flew the migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard on Sept. 14. Days earlier, in a speech to GOP donors, DeSantis teased potentially sending people who cross the U.S. border illegally to the island, where about 20,000 people live year-round. He said he might do so to help relieve southern border states dealing with a huge spike in unauthorized crossings into the country.

At a December 2021 press conference, DeSantis said the Biden administration would secure the border “the next day,” if migrants started showing up in President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware, or in Martha’s Vineyard, where many Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, have homes. 

But local authorities on the island were given no notice prior to the migrants being dropped off at the Martha’s Vineyard airport on Sept. 14. Two days later, after local officials, organizations and residents had scrambled to provide aid to the new arrivals, then-Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, also a Republican, announced that the migrants would be given the option to move about 30 miles away to a more suitable emergency shelter at the state’s Joint Base Cape Cod in Barnstable County.

“Shortly after the arrival of these individuals, Martha’s Vineyard residents joined with local and state officials to create temporary shelter and provide necessities in a moment of urgent need,” Baker said in a released statement. “However, the island communities are not equipped to provide sustainable accommodation, and state officials developed a plan to deliver a comprehensive humanitarian response. On Friday, September 16, the Commonwealth will offer transportation to a new temporary shelter on JBCC. This move will be voluntary.”

But relocating is not the same as being “deported,” as DeSantis claimed had happened.

Deportation refers to removing citizens of other countries from the U.S. for violating immigration law. The removals are carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and deportees are usually returned to their home country or another nation that will take them in.

“None of the 49 have been deported from the United States,” Rachel Self, an immigration and criminal defense attorney, told FactCheck.org by phone. Self, whose office is in Boston, has been working with several of the migrants since they were taken to the island last year.

A spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which is representing nine of the migrants, told us its organization is also unaware of any migrants on those flights being deported.

We asked DeSantis’ office to clarify his deportation claim, but we did not receive a response. 

As of early October, all of the migrants had left the emergency shelter at Joint Base Cape Cod and transitioned to more long-term housing, Baker’s office announced. Two of the migrants reportedly traveled to New York, while the vast majority moved to other cities or towns in Massachusetts, including four migrants — all related — who went back to Martha’s Vineyard to live temporarily with a local family.  

Because of the methods used to get the migrants from Texas to Massachusetts, DeSantis may have helped protect them from deportation. That’s because lawyers representing the migrants, and Javier Salazar, the Democratic sheriff of the Texas county where at least some of them had been staying pending their immigration hearings, have argued that the migrants were manipulated into flying to Martha’s Vineyard with false promises of jobs and housing — making them victims of a crime. 

For example, according to a class-action lawsuit filed against DeSantis and Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue in September, some of the migrants said they were told by a woman organizing their travel from San Antonio that they would be flying to either Boston or Washington, D.C. Another person told reporters that he thought he was going to Philadelphia, where he planned to stay with a family friend and was scheduled to meet with U.S. immigration officials. 

It was not until they were in the air that the migrants learned of their true destination, some of them said. 

Salazar’s office in Bexar County, Texas, launched a criminal investigation on Sept. 19, and he later signed certificates attesting that the migrants, whom members of his staff interviewed, had assisted in the investigation. The certifications made them eligible to apply for a special “U visa” that is meant for victims of “certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials” investigating criminal activity.

The migrants, who Self said also have applied for asylum, are unlikely to be deported while their U visa applications are being processed. And due to a backlog of more than 300,000 such petitions, it could be a while before their applications even come up for review.

If their U visa applications are approved, the migrants would be able to lawfully stay in the U.S. for at least four years, get work authorization and eventually apply for legal permanent resident status.

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The post Migrants DeSantis Flew to Martha’s Vineyard Were Not ‘Deported the Next Day,’ as He Claimed appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Summary

Here’s how the United States has fared since President Joe Biden took office two years ago:

• The economy added 10.7 million jobs under Biden, putting the total 1.2 million higher than before the pandemic.

• The unemployment rate dropped back to 3.5%; unfilled job openings surged, with over 1.7 for every unemployed jobseeker.

• Inflation roared back to the highest level in over 40 years before slowing markedly in late 2022. Overall, consumer prices are up nearly 14%. Gasoline is up 39.1%.

• Wages rose briskly, by 9.5%. But after adjusting for inflation, “real” weekly earnings went down 4.1%.

• The number of people without health insurance went down by 4.2 million.

• The trade deficit for 2022 is still on pace to set a new record.

• Economic growth has bounced back after two consecutive quarters of negative growth, and corporate profits reached a new high.
  

• Crude oil production has increased over 4%, and crude oil imports are up 7.5%.

• Gun purchases, as measured by background checks for firearm sales, declined for the second consecutive year.

• The number of people receiving federal food assistance has increased slightly.

• The publicly held debt is up 13.7%, even as annual deficits have declined.

• Apprehensions of those trying to illegally cross the southwest border into the U.S. are up 351% for the past 12 months, compared with President Donald Trump’s last year in office.

• Stocks performed poorly. The S&P 500-stock index inched up 3.1%.

Analysis

This is our fifth edition of “Biden’s Numbers,” which we first posted in January 2022 and updated on April 14, July 21 and Oct. 14. It is designed to provide an accurate statistical measure of how the U.S. has fared under Biden. We’ll continue to publish new editions with fresh data on a quarterly basis.

As we said when we posted “Obama’s Numbers” and “Trump’s Numbers,” opinions will differ on how much credit or blame any president deserves for things that happen during his time in office. We make no judgment on that.

Jobs and Unemployment

The number of people with jobs has increased dramatically since Biden took office, far surpassing pre-pandemic levels.

Employment — The U.S. economy added 10,726,000 jobs between Biden’s inauguration and December, the latest month for which data are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The December figure is 1,239,000 higher than the February 2020 peak of employment before COVID-19 forced massive shutdowns and layoffs.

One major category of jobs is still lagging, however. Government employment is still 438,000 jobs short of the pre-pandemic peak — including 248,000 public school teachers and other local education workers. 

Unemployment — The unemployment rate fell from 6.3% at the time Biden took office to 3.5% in December — a decline of 2.8 percentage points. The current rate is exactly where it was in the months just before the pandemic.

That’s uncommonly low. Since 1948, when BLS began keeping records, the jobless rate has been at or below 3.5% for only 59 months, or 6.6% of the time. Three of those months were in 2022 and three others were during the Trump years, just before the pandemic. Before that, the rate hadn’t been that low since the 1960s.

Job Openings — The number of unfilled job openings soared to a record of nearly 11.9 million during Biden’s first 14 months in office, but then declined after the Federal Reserve began a steep series of interest-rate increases aimed at cooling the economy to bring down price inflation.

The number had slipped down to just 10.5 million on the last business day of November, the most recent month on record. That’s still an increase of over 3.2 million openings — or nearly 45% — during Biden’s time.

In November, there was an average of over 1.7 jobs for every unemployed job seeker. When Biden took office, there were more job seekers than openings.

The number of job openings in December is set to be released Feb. 1.

Labor Force Participation — One reason many job openings go unfilled is that millions of Americans left the workforce during the pandemic and haven’t returned. The labor force participation rate (the percentage of the total population over age 16 that is either employed or actively seeking work) has inched up slightly during Biden’s time, from 61.3% in January 2021 to 62.3% in December.

That’s an increase of only 1 percentage point, and still leaves the rate well below the pre-pandemic level of 63.3% for February 2020.

The rate peaked at 67.3% more than two decades ago, during the first four months of 2000. Even before the pandemic economists predicted further declines due largely to the aging population. The most recent 10-year economic projection by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts the rate will rise only to 62.4% by the middle of this year — still well below the pre-pandemic level — then resume its long-term slide and drop to 61.4% by the end of 2032.

Manufacturing Jobs — During the presidential campaign, Biden promised he had a plan to create a million new manufacturing jobs — and whether it’s his doing or not, the number is rising briskly.

As of December, the U.S. added 750,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s time, a 6.2% increase in the space of 23 months, according to BLS. Furthermore, the December total is 149,000, or 1.2% above the number of manufacturing jobs in February 2020, before the pandemic forced plant closures and layoffs.

During Trump’s four years, the economy lost 182,000 manufacturing jobs, or 1.4%, largely due to the pandemic.

Wages and Inflation

CPI — Inflation came roaring back under Biden, but has slowed dramatically in the most recent six months.

Overall, during his first 23 months in office the Consumer Price Index rose 13.7%.

It was for a time the worst inflation in decades. The 12 months ending last June saw a 9.1% increase in the CPI (before seasonal adjustment), which the Bureau of Labor Statistics said was the biggest such increase since the 12 months ending in November 1981.

But the worst may now be over. The CPI rose 5.4% in the first half of last year, but only 0.9% in the last half. In December, the CPI actually declined slightly, by 0.1%. The BLS measure of gasoline prices plunged 27.5% in the last half of 2022 and went down 9.4% in December alone.

Gasoline Prices — The price of gasoline has gyrated wildly under Biden.

During the first 57 weeks of his administration, the national average price of regular gasoline at the pump rose by $1.15 (or 48.4%) as motorists resumed travel and the economy bounced back after pandemic lockdowns.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and the price shot up by another $1.48 per gallon in just 16 weeks as world oil markets were disrupted by the West’s efforts to punish Russia, the world’s third-largest oil producer (after the U.S. and Saudi Arabia). Gasoline prices peaked briefly at a record high of just over $5 per gallon in the week ending June 13.

Over the next six months the price drifted down to a low of $3.09 the week ending Dec. 26, and now has gone up again to $3.31 the week ending Jan. 16, the most recent on record.

So after all the ups and downs, the most recent price is 93 cents higher than in the week before Biden took office, an increase of 39.1%

Prices are expected to rise further this year. In its most recent Short-Term Energy Outlook, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted that gasoline prices would average $3.32 a gallon in 2023.

Wages — Wages also have gone up under Biden, but not as fast as prices.

Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers went up 9.5% during Biden’s first 23 months in office, according to monthly figures compiled by the BLS. Those production and nonsupervisory workers make up 81% of all employees in the private sector.

But inflation ate up all that gain and more. What are called “real” weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation and measured in dollars valued at their average level in 1982-84, actually declined 4.1% during that time.

But recently real wages have been rising as inflation has moderated. During the last half of 2022, real weekly earnings rose 1.3%.

Economic Growth

The U.S. economy has improved since our last report.

The nation’s economy posted a surprisingly strong third quarter in 2022 after two straight quarters of contraction, and it appears that the growth continued in the fourth quarter before slowing again in 2023.

While concerns remain about a pending recession, some forecast it will be relatively mild or may not happen at all.

The real gross domestic product, which accounts for inflation, expanded at an annual rate of 3.2% in the third quarter of 2022 after contracting at an annual rate of 1.6% in the first quarter and 0.6% in the second quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The BEA’s first official estimate for the fourth quarter of 2022 won’t be released until Jan. 26. But the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s “GDP Now” estimated that, as of Jan. 20, the economy increased at an annual rate of 3.5% in the fourth quarter. 

For the year, the most recent median forecast of the Federal Reserve Board members and Federal Reserve Bank presidents issued on Dec. 14 projected 0.5% growth for all of 2022. The Summary of Economic Projections released by the Fed at its Dec. 14 meeting also showed the central bank expected a real GDP gain of 0.5% in 2023 and 1.6% in 2024.

A majority of U.S. CEOs surveyed by The Conference Board expect a recession in 2023, although they anticipate it will be relatively mild.

“Ninety-eight percent of CEOs in the U.S. think there is going to be a recession — but it’s going to be short and shallow,” Dana Peterson, the Conference Board’s chief economist, told the Wall Street Journal.

Some economists even say a downturn isn’t inevitable, as the Associated Press reported.

Corporate Profits

Under Biden, corporate profits have reached new heights, although the most recent quarter showed a leveling off. 

After-tax corporate profits set a record at $2.75 trillion in 2021. During the third quarter of 2022, corporate profits hit an annual rate of nearly $2.9 trillion — which was a slight dip from the $3 trillion record set in the previous quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

“Profits decreased less than 0.1 percent in the third quarter after increasing 4.6 percent in the second quarter,” the BEA said in a Dec. 22 release.

Even with a slight dip, the current quarterly rate is 37% higher than the full-year figure for 2020, the year before Biden took office, as estimated by the BEA. (See line 45.)

Consumer Sentiment

Under Biden, high inflation has weakened consumer confidence in the economy, although there has been a slight uptick since our last report. 

The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers reported that its preliminary monthly Index of Consumer Sentiment for January was 64.6. That’s slightly better than our last report – when the index was 58.6 in September — and significantly higher than a record low of 50 in June. But it’s still 14.4 points lower than it was when Biden took office in January 2021. 

Joanne W. Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, attributed the recent rise to “higher incomes and easing inflation.” 

“Consumer sentiment remained low from a historical perspective but continued lifting for the second consecutive month, rising 8% above December and reaching about 4% below a year ago,” Hsu said in a statement on the preliminary survey results for January. “Current assessments of personal finances surged 16% to its highest reading in eight months on the basis of higher incomes and easing inflation.”

Stock Markets

Stock market gains that were made in Biden’s first year were all but wiped out in 2022 — which was the worst year for Wall Street since 2008.

Under the past two presidents, the stock markets went steadily up. The S&P 500-stock index rose 166% over the eight years Obama was in office, and it climbed another 67.8% during Trump’s four years. 

But since Biden took office, the S&P 500 is up a bare 3.1% as of the close of the market on Jan. 20.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is made up of 30 large corporations, did somewhat better, eking out a 7.0% gain in the two years since he took office.

But the NASDAQ composite index, made up of more than 3,000 companies including many in the technology sector that performed particularly poorly in 2022, fell sharply — down 17.2% since Biden took office. 

Health Insurance

Early release figures from the National Health Interview Survey show a drop in the number and percentage of people who lacked health insurance during Biden’s time in office. The latest figures show that 27.4 million people, or 8.3% of the population, were uninsured at the time they were interviewed in the first six months of 2022, compared with 31.6 million people, or 9.7%, who were uninsured in 2020, the year before Biden was sworn in.

That’s a decrease of 4.2 million people, or 1.4 percentage points.

The NHIS is a program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the data collection is performed by the Census Bureau in face-to-face interviews.

From 2020 to 2021, the NHIS found a drop in the number of uninsured people of just 1.6 million, which it said was not a significant difference. But there was a more sizable decline in the first six months of 2022.

The percentage of Americans under age 65 who had insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act exchanges, such as HealthCare.gov, went up from 3.8% in 2020 to 4.3% in 2021, a figure that held steady for the first six months of 2022.

The Census Bureau’s annual report, which measures those who lacked insurance for the entire year, won’t be available until this fall.

Immigration

The number of apprehensions of people trying to enter the U.S. illegally at the southwest border continues to hover near historic highs.

To even out the seasonal changes in border crossings, our measure compares the most recent 12 months on record with the year prior to a president taking office. And for the past 12 months ending in November, the latest figures available, apprehensions totaled 2,291,433, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That’s 351% higher than during Trump’s last year in office.

Since our last report in October, apprehensions rose, after a slight dip in the summer months. The number of apprehensions in September, October and November averaged just over 206,000 per month. That’s lower than the peak of 241,136 in May of last year, but looking at the entirety of Biden’s time in office, apprehensions have never been higher in history, dating back to at least 1925.

Facing heightened criticism from Republicans, Biden made his first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border as president on Jan. 8 with a four-hour visit to El Paso. Ahead of the trip, Biden spoke to reporters about border security and enforcement, acknowledging that it was “a complicated issue.”

After faulting congressional Republicans for failing to support “a comprehensive immigration plan to fix the system completely” (although, as we wrote, the sweeping immigration plan Biden proposed on his first day in office was also opposed by some Democrats and never came up for a vote), Biden announced several executive actions he was taking “to stiffen enforcement for those who try to come without a legal right to stay, and to put in place a faster process — I emphasize a ‘faster process’ — to decide a claim of asylum.”

Among the initiatives in Biden’s plan is expanding the “parole” process for Venezuelans to Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans, allowing applicants a two-year work permit if they have a friend or relative in the U.S. sponsor them and they pass a background check. The plan also includes adding more asylum officers and immigration judges to process asylum claims more quickly.

Biden has sought to terminate Title 42, a public health law invoked in response to the pandemic in March 2020 that allowed border officials to immediately return many of those caught trying to enter the country illegally. The Supreme Court in December extended the policy for at least two more months until the court hears arguments on the case in February.

Once Title 42 ends, Biden said, migrants will have to use an app and book an appointment to schedule an interview on their asylum claims, but they will have to wait outside the country until then. Those who do not go through proper channels will be expelled and will be subject to a five-year ban on reentry.

Trade Deficit

The U.S. imported almost $965.2 billion more in goods and services than it exported over the last 12 months through November, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis figures published this month. The international trade deficit in that period was $311.2 billion higher, or about 47.6% more, than in 2020.

As of November, the goods and services deficit had increased $120.1 billion from the same 11-month period in 2021 — putting the U.S. on pace to exceed the record trade deficit from the previous year.

Oil Production and Imports

U.S. crude oil production averaged roughly 11.79 million barrels per day during Biden’s most recent 12 months in office (ending in October), according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data published in late December. That was over 4% higher than the average daily amount of crude oil produced in 2020.

In its Short-Term Energy Outlook for January, the EIA projected that crude oil production averaged 11.86 million barrels per day in 2022, which would be the highest average since 2019. The EIA expects crude oil production to increase to 12.41 millions barrels per day in 2023, which would be a new record.

As for crude oil imports in Biden’s last 12 months, the U.S. brought in about 6.32 million barrels per day on average. That’s up more than 7.5% from average daily imports in 2020.

Carbon Emissions

There was no change in U.S. carbon emissions since our last quarterly update.

In the most recent 12 months on record (ending in September), there still were almost 4.95 billion metric tons of emissions from the consumption of coal, natural gas and various petroleum products, according to the EIA. That’s over 8% more than the 4.58 billion metric tons that were emitted in 2020 — but lower than about 5.15 billion metric tons emitted in 2019.

The EIA forecasts that the U.S. will have 4.83 billion metric tons of energy-related emissions in 2023, which would be a decline of over 3% from the projected total of 4.99 billion metric tons emitted in 2022.

Gun Sales

After spiking at the start of the pandemic, gun purchases appear to have slowed for the second consecutive year, based on figures from the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Since the federal government doesn’t collect data on gun sales, the NSSF, a gun industry trade group, estimates gun sales by tracking the number of background checks for firearm sales based on the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. The NSSF-adjusted figures exclude background checks unrelated to sales, such as those required for concealed-carry permits.

Earlier this month, NSSF reported that the adjusted NICS total for background checks in 2022 was about 16.43 million. That’s the third highest annual total going back to 2000 — but it’s 11.3% lower than in 2021 and 22.1% below 2020, the current one-year record, with almost 21.1 million such background checks.

In 2019, before the pandemic, there were nearly 13.2 million.

“Though not a direct correlation to firearms sales, the NSSF-adjusted NICS data provide an additional picture of current market conditions,” the NSSF said in a statement about the numbers.

Crime

The Major Cities Chiefs Association found the number of murders in 70 large U.S. cities went down by 4.3% in the first nine months of 2022, compared with the same time period in 2021. Murders declined from 7,184 to 6,877.

The drop follows an increase in homicides of 6.2% from 2020, the year before Biden became president, to 2021, according to the same group, and a 33.4% increase from 2019 to 2020, with the latter figure from 67 law enforcement agencies.

The Major Cities Chiefs Association’s most recent report also shows a 3.4% decline in the number of rapes, an 11% increase in robberies and a 1.3% increase in aggravated assaults for the first nine months of last year.

FBI data on nationwide crime for 2022 won’t be released until the fall. As we reported in our last Biden’s Numbers update, the FBI estimated that “violent and property crime remained consistent between 2020 and 2021.” Specifically, the FBI determined violent crimes fell by 1%, while murders increased by 4.3%, but the agency said the figures “are not considered statistically significant.”

The estimates also were based on data from fewer local law enforcement agencies than usual, since the FBI had transitioned to a new system — yet some police departments, including those in New York City and Los Angeles, hadn’t done so.

Another independent analysis by AH Datalytics, an organization run by criminal justice data analysts, shows a 4.8% decline in murders from late 2021 to late 2022, as of Jan. 20. The group compiles publicly available information from more than 90 large law enforcement agencies nationwide, with most agencies reporting figures through the end of November or December.

Debts and Deficits

Debt — In the three months since our last update, the public debt, which excludes money the government owes itself, increased by over $313 billion to $24.6 trillion, as of Jan. 19. The public debt is now 13.7% higher than it was when Biden took office.

Deficits — So far, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the budget deficit for fiscal year 2023 is ahead of where it was at this point in fiscal 2022, when the Treasury Department said the deficit for the full fiscal cycle was $1.375 trillion.

Through the first three months of the current fiscal year (October to December), the deficit was $418 billion, or “$41 billion more than the shortfall recorded during the same period last year,” the CBO said in its most recent Monthly Budget Review. The nonpartisan budget agency expects in February to release its Budget and Economic Outlook, with deficit projections for the full fiscal year.

Food Stamps

The number of people in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, has gone up each month since our last update.

As of October, more than 42.3 million people were receiving food assistance. That’s over 1.4 million more people than in June, and it’s an increase of 0.4%, or over 166,000 people, from January 2021, when Biden became president. The figures come from the Department of Agriculture’s latest data.

Under Biden, SNAP enrollment was as low as 40.8 million in August and September 2021. Trump’s lowest month was February 2020, when the program had 36.9 million participants.

Home Prices & Homeownership

Home Prices — With the Federal Reserve continuing to raise rates, the once red-hot housing market has cooled off. 

The median price of an existing, single-family home sold in November was $376,700 — down from the August preliminary price ($396,300) that we used in our last report, according to the National Association of Realtors. (The final August number was even higher at $398,800.)

The median home price fell for the fifth consecutive month in November after reaching a record high of $420,900 in June, and existing home sales have declined for the 10th month in a row, NAR said.

The decline in home sales and prices comes as the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate seven times last year in an effort to slow inflation. As a result, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.33% as of Jan. 12 – up from 3.45% a year ago, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. 

Even so, the November median price was 22.3% higher than it had been in January 2021, when Biden took office. Home prices have been rising for about a decade, in large part because of a high demand and relatively low inventory, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Homeownership — Homeownership rates have remained virtually unchanged under Biden.

The homeownership rate, which the Census Bureau measures as the percentage of occupied housing units that are owner-occupied, was 66% in the third quarter of 2022 — just a shade over the 65.8% rate during Trump’s last quarter in office. (Usual word of caution: The bureau warns against making comparisons with the fourth quarter of 2020, because of pandemic-related restrictions on in-person data collection.) 

The rate peaked under Trump in the second quarter of 2020 at 67.9%. The highest homeownership rate on record was 69.2% in 2004, when George W. Bush was president.

Refugees

Biden has made only incremental progress toward fulfilling his ambitious campaign promise to accept up to 125,000 refugees into the United States each year.

On Sept. 27, the Biden administration set the cap on refugee admissions for fiscal year 2023 at 125,000 – just as it did in fiscal year 2022. To achieve the president’s goal, the administration would have to admit an average of 10,417 refugees per month.

However, in fiscal year 2022, the administration accepted only 25,465 refugees, or 2,122 per month, according to State Department data. In the first three months of fiscal year 2023, which began Oct. 1, the administration welcomed 6,750 refugees, or 2,250 per month. (See “Refugee Admissions Report” for monthly data from 2000 through 2023.)

Overall, the U.S. has admitted 42,223 refugees in Biden’s first full 23 months in office, or 1,836 refugees per month, the data show. That’s 0.5% less than the 1,845 monthly average during the four years under Trump, who significantly reduced the admission of refugees. (For both presidents, our monthly averages include only full months in office, excluding the month of January 2017 and January 2021, when administrations overlapped.)

In its report to Congress for fiscal year 2023, the State Department said “we are beginning to make progress towards fulfilling President Biden’s ambitious admissions target.” In our last report, we noted that the U.S. ended fiscal year 2022 by admitting more than 5,500 refugees in September — the highest monthly amount since January 2017.

But the Biden administration, so far, has been unable to sustain that level of admission in the new fiscal year.

Judiciary Appointments

Supreme Court — Biden has won confirmation for one Supreme Court nominee, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Trump had won confirmation for two by this point in his tenure: Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Jackson replaced retired Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who was appointed by then-President Bill Clinton and served nearly three decades. 

Court of Appeals — So far, 28 U.S. Court of Appeals judges have been confirmed under Biden. At the same point in Trump’s presidency — halfway through his four years in office — 30 had been confirmed.

District Court — Biden has won confirmation for 68 District Court judges. At the same point in Trump’s term, 53 nominees had been confirmed.

Two U.S. Court of Federal Claims judges also have been confirmed under Biden.

There were 87 federal court vacancies, with 23 nominees pending, as of Jan. 20.

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The post Biden’s Numbers, January 2023 Update appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Every Democrat – and some Republicans – increased funding earlier this year for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency charged with deporting those living in the country illegally. The Biden administration has directed ICE to prioritize the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally who have committed serious felonies.

Nonetheless, an ad from a conservative group misleadingly claims that “every Senate Democrat voted against deporting criminal illegal immigrants.” The ad bases its claim on Democrats’ opposition to a Republican amendment that would have delayed passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in August. The amendment called for halting the legislation while a Senate committee looked into the need to increase the ICE budget to deport a higher number of criminals in the country illegally.

The ad highlights the case of an immigrant in the country illegally who is now charged with stabbing eight people, killing two of them. The ad notes that the alleged killer “had a criminal record.” But reporting from DailyMail.com found that while the man was charged in 2019 with domestic violence, the charge was ultimately dropped.

The ad, which ran often during the Major League Baseball playoffs, comes from Citizens for Sanity, a “dark money” group (meaning its donors are not disclosed) connected to officials in former President Donald Trump’s administration. The group is behind numerous snarky ads and billboards around the country targeting Democrats on issues such as crime and immigration.

On its website, Citizens for Sanity declares that its mission “is to return common sense to America, to highlight the importance of logic and reason, and to defeat ‘wokeism’ and anti-critical thinking ideologies that have permeated every sector of our country and threaten the very freedoms that are foundational to the American Dream.”

According to an Open Secrets review of Federal Communications Commission records, “the group’s board includes three former Trump administration officials involved in the America First Legal Foundation, a group founded by former Trump White House official Stephen Miller and aimed at using the legal system to challenge President Joe Biden‘s agenda.”

The ad begins with blurred images of the aftermath of a deadly knife attack on the Las Vegas Strip in early October.

“A bloody rampage on the Vegas strip by a knife-wielding madman,” the narrator in the ad says. “Six were injured. Two died. The alleged killer was here illegally. He had a criminal record. But every Senate Democrat voted against deporting criminal illegal immigrants. Every one. How many more will die? Stop the insanity.”

Let’s start with the second part of the ad first.

Democrats’ Vote on Vote-a-Rama Amendment

As backup for the claim that “every Senate Democrat voted against deporting criminal illegal immigrants,” Citizens for Sanity points to a vote on an amendment that was part of a so-called Senate vote-a-rama in August that preceded the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The legislation was passed via a process known as reconciliation — meaning that the bill could pass with a simple majority and would not need Republican support. As we have written before, vote-a-ramas are largely political theater in which the opposing party often proposes amendments that can be used in political ads — like this one — in the future. 

The Inflation Reduction Act will invest about $386 billion in energy and climate change incentives, and another roughly $98 billion in health care expenditures. The bill also seeks to create about $322 billion worth of health care savings, in part by lowering Medicare drug costs by allowing Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices and limiting out-of-pocket prescription drug costs to $2,000 per year. It is paid for mainly from a corporate minimum tax of 15% on companies that report profits in excess of $1 billion, a measure that is expected to bring in about $313 billion over 10 years.

During a marathon 15-hour session of the Senate, Republicans offered hundreds of amendments to the IRA, most of which were defeated.

“Democrats were relatively unified in their purpose, with most attempting to preserve the sanctity of the bill by voting against even amendments that they agreed with,” according to a story in the New Republic, a left-leaning magazine. “This ensured that, even when Republicans forced them to take politically painful votes, those amendments went down, often by a 50-50 vote.”

One of those was an effort by Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee to send the bill back to the Judiciary Committee to “ensure that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has sufficient resources to detain and deport a higher number of illegal aliens who have been convicted of a criminal offense in the United States.” (The ad cited a different Senate vote on an unrelated topic, but Citizens for Sanity confirmed it meant to refer to the Hagerty amendment and said the ad’s citation was being revised.)

“In fiscal year 2021, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 12,000 illegal aliens with aggravated felony convictions,” Hagerty said from the Senate floor on Aug. 6. “An all-time record number of illegal border crossers entered our country last year. This is an unprecedented national security crisis. Before we spend billions of dollars on Green New Deal programs, the department should first do its core job of securing the homeland.”

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, a Democrat, said the delay would mean the “end of conversation, end of debate, end of any possibility of passing what we consider to be a major piece of legislation, from prescription drugs, dealing with environmental issues, and the list goes on.”

“We understand the seriousness of this challenge [criminals in the country illegally], so much so that we have already decided it is a crime, and it is a crime that can be prosecuted,” Durbin said. “And it is a crime that is investigated and enforced by an agency of the federal government which we funded just four months ago. Four months ago, we gave $8 billion to ICE for this purpose.”

Durbin was referring to an appropriations bill that passed the Senate 68-31 (with 31 Republicans opposing it, including Hagerty) and included appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security. Specifically, it included $8.2 billion for operations and support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement — the agency responsible for deporting criminals in the country illegally, according to the Congressional Research Service. That was a nearly $331 million (4.2%) increase from fiscal year 2021.

“So now we are told we need the money, but four months ago he [Hagerty] wouldn’t vote for it,” Durbin said from the floor of the Senate in opposition to Hagerty’s proposed amendment. “I think we know what we have here. We have a challenge that really is important to this motion that both parties share, but we have a political challenge with an effort to derail this measure today. Stick together and vote against this amendment.”

Democrats did stick together and defeated the amendment, with all 50 Democratic senators voting against it.

At best, one could argue the vote was against delaying passage of the IRA to have the Judiciary Committee consider increased funding for ICE to deport more criminals in the country illegally. But the ad leaves the impression that Democrats voted against “deporting criminal illegal immigrants,” period. And that’s not accurate. As Durbin noted, Democrats voted in March to increase ICE’s budget.

Biden Administration Deportation Policy

As then-acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary David Pekoske explained in a memo on Jan. 20, 2021, shortly after Biden took office, “Due to limited resources, DHS cannot respond to all immigration violations or remove all persons unlawfully in the United States.” The memo directed ICE to prioritize the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally who are convicted of aggravated felonies.

According to ICE’s fiscal year 2021 annual report, “ICE’s more focused approach yielded measurable results. ICE’s Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) arrested an average of 1,034 aggravated felons per month from February through September 2021, a 53 percent increase over the monthly average during CY 2016 and a 51 percent increase during CY 2017-2020. During the same period in 2021, ERO removed an average of 937 aggravated felons per month, the highest level ever recorded and the greatest public safety impact since ICE began collecting detailed criminality data. 46 percent of ICE removals from February – September 2021 were of serious criminals overall (persons convicted of felonies or aggravated felonies), compared to 17 percent during CY 2016 and 18 percent during CY 2017-2020.”

The Trump administration also prioritized the deportation of criminals in the country illegally, or as Trump put it during the campaign, “bad dudes,” but not solely those convicted of aggravated felonies. Soon after taking office, the New York Times noted, Trump issued executive orders that “offers an expansive definition of who is considered a criminal — a category of people Mr. Trump has said he would target for deportation.”

Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School, told us the Trump administration considered anyone who broke an immigration law to be a deportable criminal — so virtually anyone in the country illegally.

On the heels of Trump’s policy changes, the number of interior arrests — which can lead to deportation — rose 30% in fiscal year 2017, and rose again the following year before falling a bit in fiscal 2019, according to the Pew Research Center. But even at its peak, the number was still “far lower than during President Barack Obama’s first term in office,” Pew stated. In addition, Yale-Loehr noted, a rise in people put into immigration proceedings doesn’t mean they were immediately deported, as those cases can take years.

Regardless of the differences in policies between Democratic and Republican administrations, both parties have supported the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally who commit serious crimes.

Deadly Knife Attack

That brings us to the case highlighted at the start of the Citizens for Sanity ad, involving a Guatemalan national accused of committing a deadly stabbing attack on Oct. 6. The alleged attacker, Yoni Barrios, 32, is accused of stabbing eight people, killing two, outside of a casino on the Las Vegas Strip. He has been charged with two counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder.

As the ad says, Fox News reported that Barrios is a Guatemalan national in the U.S. illegally, and that he had a criminal record in California, according to an unnamed ICE source.

However, the DailyMail.com later reported that while Barrios was charged with criminal domestic violence in 2019 in Los Angeles, he was not convicted. Prosecutors failed to bring the case to court on time, the DailyMail.com reported, citing court documents, and so a judge dismissed the case. We independently confirmed through online Los Angeles County criminal record summaries that Barrios pleaded “not guilty” to the felony charge (273.5a of the California criminal code), and that the case was “Dismissed or Not Prosecuted” on July 19, 2021, the day it was scheduled to go to trial.

“Had he been convicted, Barrios would likely have been imprisoned and deported and would not have been free to commit the senseless slaughter on the Vegas strip this week,” DailyMail.com reported.

According to the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, “Any alien who at any time after admission is convicted of a crime of domestic violence, a crime of stalking, or a crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment is deportable.”

But in this case, there was no conviction. DailyMail.com said Barrios “was also prosecuted for driving dangerously and without a license in Riverside, California in 2016.” But those are both misdemeanor offenses.

Had Barrios been convicted on the felony charge, he would have fit the bill for those prioritized by the Biden administration for deportation, Yale-Loehr told us.

The post Misleading Attack About Democrats and Criminal Immigrants appeared first on FactCheck.org.

The overall increase in fentanyl seized at the southwest border under President Joe Biden is nowhere near as high as a Republican ad misleadingly claims. U.S. border officials seized 13,021 pounds of the drug in Biden’s first full 15 months in office, which is 70% more than the 7,677 pounds seized in Donald Trump’s last full 15 months as president.

But an ad from Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and the National Republican Senatorial Committee suggests that the increase under Biden was nearly 58 times higher.

“Joe Biden opened America’s borders, increasing the flow of deadly drugs into our communities,” the ad’s narrator says of the president, who does not have an “open borders” immigration policy, as the ad falsely suggests. For example, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have continued to apprehend and expel tens of thousands of people each month. 

At the same time the narrator makes that claim, a graphic shown on screen says: “4,000 percent increase in fentanyl.” That was the multiyear increase for a tiny subset of fentanyl seizures at a point in 2021.

In a June 2 press release, Johnson’s campaign said its ad is “part of a seven-figure statewide television and digital ad buy with the NRSC.” The ad’s narrator goes on to say that “Biden’s putting our children and families at risk,” while Johnson “is warning everyone that drug traffickers are adding fentanyl to counterfeit pills.”

Johnson is up for reelection in 2022 in a Senate race that the Cook Political Report and other election prognosticators expect to be competitive.

The ad attributes the 4,000% figure to a June 29, 2021, NBC News article that focused on a three-year increase in fentanyl seized between legal ports of entry in only the El Paso, Texas, sector of the U.S. border with Mexico.

“Federal agents in this section of the southern border say they’ve seen a staggering 4,000 percent increase in fentanyl seizures over the last three years,” the article said. “Those busts are not at ports of entry, where most smuggled drugs are typically found. The Border Patrol says the rising amount of fentanyl is being found in the desert – transported by increasingly brazen smugglers who are exploiting stretched federal resources.”

NBC News reported that the amount of fentanyl seized in that area increased from 1 pound in fiscal year 2018 to 41 pounds through part of fiscal year 2021. Two pounds were seized in fiscal year 2019, and 9 pounds in fiscal year 2020.

The federal fiscal year, designated by the year in which it ends, runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

“So the big rise came during President Biden’s time in office even if the statistic cited spanned multiple years,” Alexa Henning, a Johnson campaign spokesperson, told FactCheck.org in an email explaining the ad’s use of the 4,000% figure.

But the ad still leaves the misleading impression that the increase was 4,000% under Biden, when it was 489% and only in that one area. The percentage increase under Biden is much smaller when factoring in fentanyl seizures in all regions of the border.

Total Seizures at the Southern Border

There are no comprehensive data on the total amount of illicit fentanyl smuggled into the U.S., so Republicans and others often point to the amount that is stopped from entering the country as a proxy for how much may get past officials undetected. 

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid many times stronger than morphine and heroin, and can be fatal in very small doses. The drug has contributed to an increasing number of overdose deaths in the U.S. — sometimes when people unknowingly consume counterfeit pills and other illegally manufactured drugs that have been laced with fentanyl.

But the fentanyl captured between legal ports of entry in the El Paso region is a small fraction of the total amount seized across the entire southern border each year. For instance, Border Patrol agents in the southwest seized a total of 1,002 pounds of the drug in between legal ports of entry in FY 2021. That was about 27% more than the 786 pounds those officials seized in that region in FY 2020.

In addition, as mentioned in the NBC News article — and as we’ve previously reported — the vast majority of the fentanyl seized comes through legal ports of entry, not from illegal migration in the desert between those ports.

In total, there were 10,586 pounds seized in the southwest border region in FY 2021, including fentanyl captured during inspections by CBP’s Office of Field Operations, which manages the over 300 legal U.S. ports of entry. That was about 132% more than the 4,558 pounds seized by both the OFO and Border Patrol in FY 2020.

As for FY 2022, there had been 6,237 pounds of fentanyl seized through April, according to the most recent CBP data. That’s slightly more than the 6,096 pounds seized in the same seven-month period in FY 2021.

But the fiscal year comparisons obscure the fact that the steep rise in seized fentanyl started in mid-2020 under Trump, as the chart above illustrates. In fact, 36% of the fentanyl seized in FY 2021 was during the first four months of that fiscal year, when Trump was president for a full 111 of those 123 days.

Overall, about 13,021 pounds of fentanyl were seized in Biden’s first full 15 months in office, which is 70% more than the 7,677 pounds of fentanyl that were seized in Trump’s last full 15 months as president. That’s significantly less than 4,000%.

By citing a figure from the NBC News article about the multiyear increase in the relatively small amounts of fentanyl seized between legal entry ports in one section of the southern border, the anti-Biden/pro-Johnson ad gives viewers the misleading impression that the percentage increase under Biden has been much larger than it actually is.

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The post Ad Misleads on Percentage Increase in Fentanyl Seizures Under Biden appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Q: Has the Biden administration sent “pallets” of infant formula to the border amid a nationwide shortage?

A: Yes. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that first encounters and then processes immigrants, is legally required to provide formula to infants in its care and has been doing so during the recent shortage.  

FULL QUESTION

Is it true that the Biden admin is sending pallets & pallets of baby formula to the immigrants at the border but leaving US grocery store shelves bare?

FULL ANSWER

A nationwide shortage of baby formula has been driven by the shutdown of a major plant run by Abbott Nutrition, a recall of Abbott’s formula and pandemic-related supply-chain issues. But the issue became politicized when lawmakers and pundits suggested that the shortage was due to the president’s policies.

After being criticized for being slow to respond, President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act on May 18 to address the shortage, military planes have begun bringing tons of formula from Europe, and the FDA has entered a consent decree with Abbott to re-open the closed facility.

But claims about the shortage persist, and conservatives have now combined them with another politicized issue — immigration.

Rep. Kat Cammack, a Republican from Florida, was one of the first to do so. She posted two pictures on Facebook on May 11 — one showed a shelf holding baby food and Sam’s Club infant formula for immigrants, while the other showed partially empty shelves with Similac, a brand of infant formula made by Abbott. She paired them with a message that said, “The first photo is from this morning at the Ursula Processing Center at the U.S. border. Shelves and pallets packed with baby formula. The second is from a shelf right here at home. Formula is scarce. This is what America last looks like.”

The next day, Cammack added a link seeking political contributions.

Since posting the pictures, she’s been featured on Fox News or Fox Business at least five times making similar claims. Among her appearances was one on Sean Hannity’s show, one of the cable network’s most watched programs.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, picked up on the claim, too, tweeting on May 13: “Joe Biden continues to put America LAST by shipping pallets of baby formula to the southern border as American families face empty shelves.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the administration’s decision to provide formula to detained infants “reckless” in a joint statement with Brandon Judd, president of the border patrol’s union. Judd has advanced “replacement theory” arguments, saying he believes that the Biden administration is encouraging immigration from South and Central America in order to “change the demographics of the electorate.”

The joint statement also said, “While mothers and fathers stare at empty grocery store shelves in a panic, the Biden Administration is happy to provide baby formula to illegal immigrants coming across our southern border.”

But those claims omit information about immigration policy requirements.

The treatment of detained immigrant minors is governed by a framework of U.S. laws and regulations, chief among them a 1997 settlement agreement in a class-action case called Flores v. Reno.

That agreement laid out the legal standards required for minors in U.S. custody, specifying that they be afforded “drinking water and food as appropriate,” access to bathrooms, emergency medical services, and accommodations that are ventilated and temperature-controlled.

The original agreement referred to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was dissolved after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency within DHS, is the first to detain child migrants who cross or are taken across the border illegally.

In accordance with Flores, CBP issued a set of national standards in 2015 that specified food provided to minors “must be appropriate for at-risk detainees’ age and capabilities (such as formula and baby food).”

A November policy statement from CBP reiterated that requirement, following recommendations for the treatment of infants from the DHS Office of Inspector General’s July 2021 report.

“CBP facilities will have diapers, baby wipes, and infant formula available for infants. Infant formula must be inspected on a regular basis to ensure it has not reached or surpassed its expiration date,” the policy statement says.

The policy statement also establishes that CBP facilities within 100 miles of the southwest border must have at least one “safe and secure sleeper/bassinet in which infants can sleep” and that all centralized processing centers must have at least five.

Data posted to CBP’s website doesn’t show how many infants it has processed and a CBP spokesman declined to answer our request for information about how many infants are currently detained at the border and how much formula is on hand at detention facilities.

But the spokesman did provide us with this statement: “CBP takes seriously its legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of individuals in our custody. Ensuring migrants, including children and infants, in our custody have their basic needs met is in line with this Administration’s commitment to ensuring safe, orderly, and humane processes at our border. CBP complies with all applicable regulations for the purchase of products used in CBP facilities.”

So, detention facilities are legally required to provide formula to infants in their care.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said as much when she was asked about the claims at a May 13 press conference. Psaki referred to the Flores settlement and said of providing detained infants with formula, “CBP is following the law. … This has been a law in the United States for a quarter-century. It’s been followed by every administration.”

It’s also worth noting that, according to CBP’s own standards, detainees are not supposed to be held for longer than 72 hours and “[e]very effort must be made to hold detainees for the least amount of time required for their processing, transfer, release, or repatriation as appropriate and as operationally feasible.”

That 72-hour limit isn’t always followed. But to the extent that CBP is providing formula to detained infants, it’s likely not for an extended period of time, which suggests that the amount of formula at the facilities wouldn’t have a measurable impact on the national supply.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Sources

Biden, Joe. “Memorandum on the Delegation of Authority Under the Defense Production Act to Ensure an Adequate Supply of Infant Formula.” Presidential actions. 18 May 2022.

Cammack, Kat. “The first photo is from this morning at the Ursula Processing Center at the U.S. border. Shelves and pallets packed with baby formula. The second is from a shelf right here at home. Formula is scarce. This is what America last looks like.” Facebook. 11 May 2022.

Stefanik, Elise (@RepStefanik). “Joe Biden continues to put America LAST by shipping pallets of baby formula to the southern border as American families face empty shelves.” Twitter. 13 May 2022.

Abbott, Greg. Press release. “Governor Abbott, National Border Patrol Council Release Joint Statement On Biden Administration Providing Baby Formula To Illegal Immigrants Amid National Shortage.” 12 May 2022.

Carless, Will. “‘Replacement theory’ fuels extremists and shooters. Now a top Border Patrol agent is spreading it.” USA Today. 6 May 2022.

Congressional Research Service. “Child Migrants at the Border: The Flores Settlement Agreement and Other Legal Developments.” 1 Apr 2021.

Gruwell, Abbie. “Unaccompanied Minors and the Flores Settlement Agreement: What to Know.” National Conference of State Legislatures. Accessed 19 May 2022.

Flores v. Reno. Stipulated settlement agreement. U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. 17 Jan 1997.

Congressional Research Service. “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Authorities and Procedures.” 20 Dec 2021.

Council on Foreign Relations. “U.S. Detention of Child Migrants.” Updated 2 Dec 2021.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search.” Oct 2015.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “Policy Statement and Required Actions Regarding Pregnant, Postpartum, Nursing Individuals, and Infants in Custody.” 29 Nov 2021.

Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General. “Review of the February 16, 2020 Childbirth at the Chula Vista Border Patrol Station.” 20 Jul 2021.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Southwest Land Border Encounters. Accessed 19 May 2022.

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki. The White House. YouTube. 13 May 2022.

U.S. Department of State. “William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.” 1 Jan 2008.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “Latest UC Data – FY2021.” 15 Nov 2021.

The post Border Patrol Required to Provide Formula to Detained Infants appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Quick Take

Dozens of people stayed at a Florida hotel in January while employed as temporary farmworkers for a wholesale plant nursery. But a Facebook video and a tweet by State Rep. Anthony Sabatini falsely claimed they were “illegals” — sparking a protest outside the hotel. Attorneys for the nursery said all of them had visas to work in the U.S.

Full Story

The number of apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the U.S. border with Mexico increased by 317% during President Joe Biden’s first 10 full months in office, compared with the same period in 2020. With midterm elections fast approaching, immigration has been a hot topic for Republicans seeking congressional office. 

But a video posted on Facebook on Jan. 30 — and shared on Twitter by Republican State Rep. Anthony Sabatini of Florida — isn’t an example of illegal immigration.

The video made on Jan. 28 in a hotel parking lot in Maitland, Florida, falsely claimed to show “4 busloads of illegals being dropped off from the Southern Border… All 18-25 year old able-bodied men… given credit cards of American tax dollars and a place to stay.”

The video was posted by The Red, White and Blue, a page that self-identifies as advocating for “GOD, COUNTRY, GUTS AND TRUTH – no matter how ugly the Truth maybe.”

The post amassed about 1,000 views. On Twitter, the video received more than a 170,000 views and was shared by Sabatini on Jan. 30.

Sabatini, who is a candidate in Florida’s 7th Congressional District, added text that read, “Hundreds of illegals were just SHIPPED into my congressional district yesterday—dropped off in Maitland. We MUST stop & DEPORT them immediately…”

The social media claims were followed on Jan. 31 by a protest by dozens of people outside the Maitland hotel. 

But the workers seen in the video were not “illegals.” They were in the U.S. legally as contract laborers for Dewar Nurseries, a wholesale plant nursery in Apopka, Florida.

Attorneys for Dewar Nurseries released a statement to Click Orlando News, saying: “The workers employed by Dewar Nurseries who reside at the Extended Stay Hotel in Maitland are here in the United States under the H2A Visa program. This is a long-standing, 100-percent legitimate program that allows our companies to hire the workers we need to deliver the best-quality products to our customers. Any suggestion to the contrary is mistaken.”

The H-2A program “allows U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs,” according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Apopka Mayor Bryan Nelson also told a Click Orlando News reporter that 90 to 100 people who were staying at the Extended Stay Hotel in Maitland all have H-2A visas.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Alvarez, Priscilla. “GOP zeroes in on Biden’s immigration record ahead of midterm elections.” CNN. 14 Jan 2022.

Gore, D’Angelo, et al. “Biden’s Numbers.” FactCheck.org. 20 Jan 2022.

Heath, Christopher. “Viral social media post falsely states illegal immigrants dropped off at Central Florida motel.” WFTV.com. 31 Jan 2022.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers. Accessed 10 Feb 2022.

Zizo, Christie. “Migrants staying at Maitland hotel are legal farm workers, Apopka mayor says.” Click Orlando News. 31 Jan 2022. 

The post Florida Video Shows Legal Migrant Workers, Not ‘Busloads of Illegals’ appeared first on FactCheck.org.