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More Mendacity From Felon Trump's Speech to Congress

Fact check: Trump says car plants are "opening up all over the place"

Trump said: “We’re going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody’s ever seen. Plants are opening up all over the place. Deals are being made, never seen. That’s a combination of the election win and tariffs. It’s a beautiful word, isn’t it, that, along with our other policies, will allow our auto industry to absolutely boom. It’s going to boom. Spoke to the majors today, all three, the top people, and they’re so excited. In fact, already, numerous car companies have announced that they will be building massive automobile plants in America, with Honda just announcing a new plant in Indiana, one of the largest anywhere in the world.”

This is mostly false.

No automaker has announced a new plant since Trump took office and began instituting new tariffs. Reuters reported that Honda planned to produce 210,000 Civics in Indiana instead of Mexico, but the company hasn’t made a public announcement.

What’s more, it’s unclear whether Honda would expand its operations in Indiana, open a new plant or simply move production of the new Civic to the plant and reduce production of other vehicles there, too. Honda’s Indiana plant produces as many as 250,000 vehicles annually.

In addition, Trump’s move to impose a 25% tariff on all imports coming into the United States from Canada and Mexico could add thousands of dollars to the cost of each new vehicle.

Fact check: Trump claims illegal immigration "destroyed" Aurora, Colo., and Springfield, Ohio

Trump said: "Joe Biden didn’t just open our borders. He flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities throughout the country. Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody has ever seen before. Beautiful towns destroyed."

This is false.

Springfield and Aurora have long been some of Trump’s favorite targets when it comes to examples of American cities he likes to nod to as being overrun by migrants, though he often misrepresents the situations there.

He didn’t mention any specific allegations about the two cities in his speech — but his reference to them is a clear reference to previous false allegations about them.

For example, Trump repeated a baseless claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating dogs and other pets during a debate last year. The story provide false, however. The culprit was a non-migrant woman in a nearby town.

Fact check: Trump claims illegal immigration "destroyed" Aurora, Colo., and Springfield, Ohio.

Trump said: "Joe Biden didn’t just open our borders. He flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities throughout the country. Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody has ever seen before. Beautiful towns destroyed."

Springfield and Aurora have long been some of Trump’s favorite targets when it comes to examples of American cities he likes to nod to as being overrun by migrants, though he often misrepresents the situations there.

He didn’t mention any specific allegations about the two cities in his speech — but his reference to them is a clear reference to previous false allegations about them.

For example, Trump repeated a baseless claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating dogs and other pets during a debate last year. The story provide false, however. The culprit was a non-migrant woman in a nearby town.

Meanwhile, Trump also painted a sinister picture of Aurora during the campaign. At a rally there in October, he alleged the city had been overtaken by a Venezuelan prison gang — Tren de Aragua — after a social media clip went viral claiming the gang had taken over an apartment complex in Aurora.

Police at the time said there was no evidence the gang had taken over the complex, and Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican, called Trump’s descriptions “not accurate.”

Fact check: Is Canada, along with Mexico, to blame for the fentanyl crisis?

Trump said of Canada and Mexico: “They’ve allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens and many very young, beautiful people, destroying families. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.”

This is partly false.

While fentanyl comes across the border from Mexico in significant numbers, Canada is hardly to blame for the crisis. In the 2024 fiscal year, fentanyl seizures at the northern border were just 43 pounds, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Meanwhile, more than 21,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the southern border during the same period.

Fact check: Trump says many migrants who entered the country the past four years were criminals.

Trump said: “Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States. Many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world because of Joe Biden’s insane and very dangerous open border policies. They are now strongly embedded in our country, but we are getting them out and getting them out fast.”

This is misleading.

According to Customs and Border Protection data, the Biden administration had more than an estimated 14 million migrant encounters at and between ports of entry at U.S. borders.

More than 118,000 migrants with criminal backgrounds were apprehended at U.S. borders during that time — a small part of the more than over 14 million migrant encounters. There have been instances of migrants found to have criminal records from their home countries after they’ve entered the United States, but there is no evidence to support that it is widespread, and immigration officials have long cited challenges with getting criminal records from certain migrants’ home countries before they cross the border.

The Trump administration has frequently cited the presence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in the United States and the high-profile killing of the Georgia nursing student Laken Riley last year by a Venezuelan national who entered the country illegally in 2022 as indicative of widespread migrant crime.
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According to the conservative Cato Institute,

Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers

❖ Fentanyl smuggling is ultimately funded by U.S. consumers who pay for illicit opioids: nearly 99 percent of whom are U.S. citizens.

❖ In 2022, U.S. citizens were 89 percent of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers—12 times greater than convictions of illegal immigrants for the same offense.

❖ In 2023, 93 percent of fentanyl seizures occurred at legal crossing points or interior vehicle checkpoints, not on illegal migration routes, so U.S. citizens (who are subject to less scrutiny) when crossing legally are the best smugglers.

❖ The location of smuggling makes sense because hard drugs at ports of entry are at least 96 percent less likely to be stopped than people crossing illegally between them.

❖ At most, just 0.009 percent of the people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl whatsoever.

❖ The government exacerbated the problem by banning most legal cross-border traffic in 2020 and 2021, accelerating a switch to fentanyl (the easiest-to-conceal drug).

❖ During the travel restrictions, fentanyl seizures at ports quadrupled from fiscal year 2019 to 2021. Fentanyl went from a third of combined heroin and fentanyl seizures to over 90 percent.

❖ Annual deaths from fentanyl nearly doubled from 2019 to 2021 after the government banned most travel (and asylum).




Again, all the above, as well as the paragraphs below, are from the conservative Cato Institute.
https://www.cato.org/blog/fentanyl-smuggled-us-citizens-us-citizens-not-asylum-seekers
https://www.cato.org/blog/us-citizens-were-89-convicted-fentanyl-traffickers-2022




It is monstrous that tens of thousands of people are dying unnecessarily every year from fentanyl. But banning asylum and limiting travel backfired. Reducing deaths requires figuring out the cause, not jumping to blame a group that is not responsible. Instead of attacking immigrants, policymakers should focus on effective solutions that help people at risk of a fentanyl overdose.

U.S. Citizens Bring Fentanyl Through Legal Crossing Points

That U.S. citizens account for most fentanyl trafficking convictions is not surprising given the location of fentanyl border seizures. In 2023, 93 percent of fentanyl border seizures occurred at legal border crossings and interior vehicle checkpoints (and 91 percent of drug seizures at checkpoints are from U.S. citizens—only 4 percent by “potentially removable” immigrants). In 2022, so far, Border Patrol agents who were not at vehicle checkpoints accounted for just 7 percent of the fentanyl seizures near the border (Figure 2). Of that 7 percent, CBP has testified the majority was seized from vehicle stops, again usually from U.S. citizens. Since it is easier for U.S. citizens to cross legally than noncitizens, it makes sense for fentanyl producers to hire U.S. citizen smugglers.

The DEA reports that criminal organizations “exploit major highway routes for transportation, and the most common method employed involves smuggling illicit drugs through U.S. [ports of entry] in passenger vehicles with concealed compartments or commingled with legitimate goods on tractor-trailers.” Several agencies including CBP, ICE, and DHS intelligence told Congress in May 2022 the same thing: hard drugs come through ports of entry.
JimboSaturn · 56-60, M
@ElwoodBlues Before Trumps office, 0.2% of fentanyyl came from the Canadian border. To appease him Canada spent millions to tighten the border and appointed a fentanyl czar. Since those actions, fentanyl seizures decrease 97% to half an ounce in a month. Surely this is not the reason for the tariffs.
@JimboSaturn tRUMP gave The Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh—a well known opioid addict.

Then look at the career of Demoted Rear Admiral Lower Half Ronny Jackson—known as “the Candyman” when he ran the White House Pharmacy.

tRUMP has no problems whatsoever with addicts, drunks, domestic abusers, rapists, child sex traffickers…
sunsporter1649 · 70-79, M
@ElwoodBlues And what does that have to do with auto manufactoring?
@sunsporter1649 It refutes a DIFFERENT claim tRump made in his speech; a claim about fentanyl. Barking up the wrong tree only makes our opioid problem WORSE!

Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers
specman · 51-55, MVIP
@ElwoodBlues it’s smuggled from where?
@specman We have to police our own people when they come across our own border. Barking up the wrong tree only makes things worse.

Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers
specman · 51-55, MVIP
@ElwoodBlues what country is it smuggled from?
@specman The materials originate in China. But finger-pointing doesn't solve any problems.

We have to police our own people when they come across our own border. Barking up the wrong tree only makes things worse.

Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers
specman · 51-55, MVIP
@ElwoodBlues to answer the question that I have been asking is the ingredients come from china. But it is made in Mexico by the cartels. The cartels then use any means possible to smuggle it in the USA.

Do you disagree?
@specman No.But finger-pointing doesn't solve any problems.

We have to police our own people when they come across our own border. Barking up the wrong tree only makes things worse.

Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers
sunsporter1649 · 70-79, M
@ElwoodBlues And that from somebody who has never crossed the southern border and tried to return, just like your border czar
JSul3 · 70-79
@sunsporter1649 I worked for a national leader in work wear. We had trucks that crossed the border at Eagle Pass multiple times a day.
Our management team made trips there to meet with our broker and visit plants in Mexico frequently.

Often we walked across....other times drove a car. We were asked to show our passports. We never had our car inspected or trunk opened.

So what's your question?
@sunsporter1649 says
And that from somebody who has never crossed the southern border and tried to return,
DEAD WRONG!! AS USUAL!!!

I have in fact been across our southern border to Tiajuana and returned, ijit!!

I've also been across our northern border and returned, ijit!!