President Trump’s claim that migrants are being sent to sanctuary cities

“Last month alone, 100,000 illegal immigrants arrived at our borders, placing a massive strain on communities and schools and hospitals and public resources like nobody’s ever seen before. Now we’re sending many of them to sanctuary cities, thank you very much. They’re not too happy about it. I’m proud to tell you that was actually my sick idea, by the way. No. Hey, hey, what did they say? ‘We want them.’ I said: ‘We’ll give them to you. Thank you.’ They said, ‘We don’t want them.’ ”

— President Trump, at a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wis., April 27, 2019

“We’re releasing them into sanctuary cities almost exclusively. You know, sanctuary cities want them. But once we started releasing them, they didn’t want them. So, you know, they want them, they talk — they talk a good game. But once you start saying: ‘Okay. Congratulations. Here are some.’ And they don’t want them. And they fight very hard. So, the whole sanctuary city thing is a big scam.”

— Trump, in an interview with Fox Business Network’s “Mornings With Maria,” April 29, 2019

First at a campaign rally and then in an interview, Trump claimed twice over the past week that undocumented immigrants were being released into sanctuary cities (and that the cities weren’t taking them).

If that rings a bell, it’s because the White House recently floated this proposal to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Four Pinocchios

View the complete April 30 article by Salvador Rizzo on The Washington Post website here.