Fact-Checking Trump’s West Virginia and Indiana Rallies

“Last year alone, our brave ICE officers arrested — listen to this number — more than 127,000 criminal aliens.”

While Trump’s figure is accurate, it should be noted that most criminal charges against immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were nonviolent.

In the 2017 fiscal year, the agency convicted nearly 106,000 immigrants and charged another 22,000. Of more than 500,000 charges or convictions, 288,000, or more than half, were for traffic offenses, drug offenses or immigration violations.

As The New York Times has previously reported, many academic studies have shown that immigration does not drive crime, and immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.

“Remember what I said during the debates? Everyone was talking about cutting the Social Security and all — I said we’re not touching your Social Security.”

Although other Republican candidates in the 2016 presidential campaign — like Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky — proposed raising the retirement age, Trump is wrong that he was the only candidate to oppose cuts to Social Security.

Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, called plans to raise the retirement age “theft.”

The Democratic candidates in 2016, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both proposed expanding Social Security benefits, which Trump cited in a Republican primary debate early that year.

“The Democrats are doing nothing with Social Security,” he said in March 2016. “They’re leaving it the way it is. In fact, they want to increase it. They want to actually give more.”

Trump also made a host of other claims during the rallies that The Times has previously debunked:

— He misleadingly claimed in West Virginia that4.5 million new jobs had been created since his election, “a number that was unthinkable.” He repeated a version of this claim — “nobody would have believed that” — in Indiana. (More jobs were created in the comparable period before his election.)

— In West Virginia, he falsely claimed “for the first time, wages are going up.” (Wages were rising for several years under President Barack Obama.)

— He falsely claimed at both rallies that Democrats would “use socialism to turn America into Venezuela,” referring to “Medicare for all” proposals. (Venezuela’s health care system was not a major contributing factor to its economic and political crisis.)

— He falsely claimed at both rallies that the border wall was being built. (Construction has not begun.)

— He falsely accused Democrats of wanting “open borders” at both rallies. (Democrats support border security measures.)

— He claimed at both rallies that Democrats wanted to “invite caravan after caravan.” (There is no evidence that Democrats are behind the migrant caravan.)

— He claimed at both rallies that unauthorized immigrants cost the United States more than $100 billion a year. (The figure comes from an anti-immigration group that other researchers have heavily criticized for methodological flaws.)

— He falsely claimed at both rallies that Medicare-for-all proposals will “obliterate” Medicare for seniors. (The proposals expand coverage and benefits.)

— He promised at both rallies that Republicans will “always protect patients with pre-existing conditions.” (That is contradicted by actions from his administration and Republican legislation that would undermine protections.)

— In West Virginia, he falsely claimed that United States Steel had built “seven new plants.” (The company has not built a single plant.)

— In West Virginia, he grossly exaggerated the number of immigrants who failed to attend court hearings as “almost none.” (Overall, about 28 percent of immigrants and 11 percent of asylum-seekers do not.)

— In West Virginia, he misleadingly claimed to have saved $1 billion on the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and spent less than $500,000. (His estimate conflates the cost of building a new embassy and upgrading an existing facility, which will cost at least $21 million.)

— He falsely claimed at both rallies that patients could not get access to experimental drugs before he signed “right to try” legislation. (A similar program has existed for decades.)