For the Lügenpresse, the recent fad for “fact-checking” has always really been about protecting the Talking Points of the Deep State, most notably on immigration. Granted, we shouldn’t attribute to mendacity what could be stupidity. But the problem with giving the Lying Press the benefit of the doubt is that most reporters seem willfully ignorant of the basic facts about immigration. Think of Hannah Hudnall. The end result is the same: The communist Mainstream Media’s “fact checks” are mostly fact-free.
Which brings us to a pair of Gen Z “fact-checkers” at PolitiFact, Samantha Putterman and Marta Campabadal Graus. They “fact-checked” Ron DeSantis’ claims that Joe Biden has allowed more than 6 million illegal aliens to invade the country.
Looking at those data requires some knowledge of Biden’s Zerg Rush, including his Administrative Amnesty, and a detailed knowledge of how immigration enforcement works. However, that is not what one gets from Senoritas Putterman and Graus.
Government reporter Putterman’s qualifications to write about the invasion are unclear. Perhaps she’s qualified because “she also writes about public health and abortion” [Email her].
Graus, a Spaniard from Barcelona, is “focused on Spanish-speaking misinformation,” and like Putterman, appears to have no expertise on immigration [Email her].
Maybe she’s qualified to fact-check DeSantis because she’s a Fulbright scholar and, according to her bio “worked for the data-driven newswire Stacker and Mission Local, a local newsroom in San Francisco.” Whatever the case, Hispanics are frequently assigned to report on immigration—mostly inaccurately—presumably on the theory that their ethnicity provides some special insight into the subject.
In contrast, my expertise on immigration comes from 28 years in the legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), not a journalism degree and speaking Spanish.
The moppets fail to understand basic math:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently vowed that, if elected president, he will deport all migrants who have entered the U.S. illegally under President Joe Biden.
“Everyone that has come illegally under Biden, we gotta, we’ll send them back. That’s going to be first priority,” DeSantis said at a Sept. 29 campaign event in California. “That’s probably 6 or 7 million people right there. It’s going to require a lot of effort.”
But DeSantis is conflating the number of times Border Patrol agents have encountered migrants at the border with the number of migrants who entered and remain in the country, an error also made by others who previously vied for the Republican presidential nomination [Ron DeSantis Exaggerates Number Of Migrants In US Illegally Under President Joe Biden, by Marta Campabadal Graus and Samantha Putterman, PolitiFact, October 4, 2023].
One cannot, of course, “fact check” DeSantis’ vow to begin Operation Wetback II, but note the obvious cheap shot: They failed—or the headline writer failed—to give DeSantis his formal title, governor. But they correctly called Traitor Joe “President.” That lie by omission foreshadowed the falsehood that DeSantis doesn’t understand the border numbers and is confused—or is “conflating”—”migrant encounters” with “migrants who entered and remain in the country.”
But the pair inadvertently showed that DeSantis was correct.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP] data shows that the figures DeSantis cited are close to the nationwide number of migrant encounters at and between ports of entry since Biden took office. But that figure doesn’t show how many migrants remained in the U.S.
Biden was inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021. From February 2021 through August 2023, there were about 7.2 million encounters across all points of entry nationwide, CBP’s data shows [emphasis added].
Encounter data does not reflect the number of individual immigrants stopped. For example, if one person tries to cross the border three times and is stopped each time, that would be counted as three encounters.
So the data do show, at the least, 7.2 million encounters. But the point of the “Fact Check” is that DeSantis was discussing illegals who entered the country, not merely encounters.
So let’s go to the basic math that shows that DeSantis was right.
The two moppets breathlessly announced that Traitor Joe is deporting millions.
“The CBP encounters include nearly 3 million expulsions — in other words, enforcement activity that ensures people do not remain in the United States,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director for the Migration Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
Mittelstadt also said some people apprehended at the border are initially detained and eventually removed from the country.
CBP data confirms Mittelstadt’s point that millions of encounters led to removals. From February 2021 to May 2023, there were about 2.5 million expulsions under Title 42, a COVID-19 pandemic-era policy that allowed border officials to quickly expel migrants who crossed the southwest border. Besides the Title 42 removals, CBP data shows there have been about 591,000 removals initiated by border authorities during Biden’s tenure.
Credit where it’s due: The two did explain that the deportation data came from a “Progressive” think tank—“Progressive” being Leftist code for communist and/or Treason Lobby.
But even if this were true, subtracting 3 million expulsions from about 7 million encounters leaves a record 4 million illegals in the country. Of course, the moppets didn’t tell us that.
Nor do they discuss other important numbers—known gotaways, unknown gotaways, and parolees—that, again, prove DeSantis is right.
Known gotaways are 1.6 million:
Among the more than 8.6 million people who’ve illegally entered the U.S. since President Joe Biden took office, at least nearly 1.6 million are “gotaways.”
Gotaways is the official term used by Border Patrol agents to describe foreign nationals who illegally enter the U.S. between ports of entry and don’t return to Mexico or Canada…
The data excludes the unknown number coming through who are undetected, and therefore, aren’t reported.
[The Border Report: Nearly 1.6 Million 'Gotaways' In U.S. Since January 2021, by Bethany Blankley, The Washington Examiner, August 28, 2023]
Joe Biden has also “paroled” 445,367 illegals.
Add all that: 4 million encountered and not deported, plus 1.6 million gotaways, plus almost 500,000 parolees. Total: About 6 million.
Not included in that figure are unknown gotaways.
In the 1990s, the Border Patrol assumed that one illegal got away for every one arrested. Today, that would be 1.6 million using the number of known gotaways. Given that most border agents are processing illegals, that could be a frightening underestimate. But let’s lowball the number. Even an estimate of 1 million unknowns annually for the three years of the regime yields 9 million illegals.
That means DeSantis underestimated the number of illegals Biden has unleashed to dispossess and replace the Historic American Nation.
But the Ladies of the Lügenpresse still weren’t finished:
There is no available data that shows the number of migrants who have been allowed to stay in the country after entering.
That would be frightening if it were true, but it isn’t. U.S. Customs and Border Protection provides the data at its website, as other serious reporters who cover the invasion know:
BREAKING: New CBP data reveals Border Patrol released over 900,000 migrants into the U.S. in fiscal year 2023 after they were apprehended crossing illegally, including a staggering 155,821 releases in September alone.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 27, 2023
These numbers do not include ICE or ports of entry releases.… pic.twitter.com/robb2SzhVF
At 900,000 releases annually for three years, CBP’s data show that Biden has released at least 2.7 million illegal aliens.
So, taking into account all the numbers, young Putterman and Gaus should have reported that DeSantis was mostly or completely correct.
Our southern border is something out of a dystopian novel.
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) October 25, 2023
Our country is being invaded. Children are dying. Cities are crumbling.
We need to end this chaos. Sign my petition TODAY.
However, either through laziness, ideology, or incompetence, our Gen Z “fact-checkers” retailed the very serious falsehood that GOP POTUS candidate DeSantis doesn’t understand the illegal-alien invasion.
In fact, it’s our little ladies at Politifact who don’t understand it. Probably because they welcome it.
Maybe Politifact should hire some new fact checkers. Or better yet, leave the fact-checking business to people who know the facts.
The blogger Federale (Email him) is a 4th generation Californian and a veteran of federal law enforcement, including service in the legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal law enforcement agencies.
