In a desperate attempt to salvage his immigration policy and restore his reputation as being “strong” on immigration, President Trump Friday afternoon hosted “angel families,” families of victims of undocumented immigrants. Earlier this week, after increasing national and international outrage over his placing babies and children in internment camps and cages, Trump paused his policy of separating migrant children from their undocumented parents.
“These are the American victims permanently separated from their lived ones,” Trump said at the event, mimicking the “separated” language of migrant children taken from their undocumented parents. He also suggested those children are separated from their parents for only one or two days. Later, one of the family members suggested migrant children are separated from their families five or 10 days. The average is nearly two months.
The president told attendees that the United States has “the weakest” immigration laws “in the history of the world.” That is a lie.
He also claimed that undocumented immigrants commit more crimes than U.S. citizens, and suggested that all undocumented immigrants “continuously get into trouble and do bad things.” Those, too are false.
Citing what he said was a 2011 government report, Trump rattled off numbers of seven-year old crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. He did not explain why he was not using more recent statistics.