President Biden lost his patience with former President Trump’s falsehoods on immigration during Thursday’s debate, attempting to steer the discussion toward the failed bipartisan Senate border deal.
“Everything he says is a lie. Every single one,” Biden asserted during the CNN event in Atlanta.
Biden’s frustration grew as Trump repeated numerous false claims about immigration, suggesting the Biden administration intentionally opened the border to criminals and terrorists. as reported by The Hill.
“He decided to open up our border, open up our country to people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions, insane asylum, terrorists,” Trump claimed.
Trump also linked immigration to crime, a key point for Republicans ahead of November’s election. However, research consistently shows that immigrants generally commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens. A recent Cato Institute paper analyzed Texas Department of Public Safety data and found that the conviction rate for undocumented immigrants was lower than that for natural-born citizens every year from 2013 to 2022.
Trump described the United States as a “rat’s nest” and exaggerated the presence of terrorists entering the country. He criticized Biden’s call for Congress to provide more powers and resources to control the border, arguing, “He didn’t need legislation, because I didn’t have legislation, I said close the border.”
Trump also falsely compared migrant living conditions, labeling them as “luxury hotels,” to those of unhoused veterans, and accused Biden of endangering lives at the border.
“He has killed so many people at our border by allowing all of these people to come in, and it’s a very sad day in America,” Trump said from Yahoo.
Biden, clearly exasperated, delivered one of his strongest lines of the night: “Everything he says is a lie. Every single one.” However, he then shifted focus to address Trump’s comments about veterans, moving away from the immigration topic.
Trump continued to bring up immigration or the border in response to most other questions throughout the debate.
