Former President Donald Trump made several bold claims in his interview with Elon Musk and launched a series of attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris over her record on immigration and border security.
Among the Republican presidential candidate’s most striking claims were the number of illegal border crossings under President Joe Biden’s administration and the impact on crime rates.
Newsweek The Trump team asked for comment via email.
Figures on illegal migration
The former Republican president claimed that 20 million people crossed the southern border illegally under Biden.
While critics point out that the actual number of border crossings cannot be determined with certainty, Trump’s number does not match the official statistics.
Joel Martinez/The Monitor
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, there have been about 8.1 million encounters with migrants at the southern border since Biden took office. Official figures show that the total number of “encounters” nationwide during the period from February 2021 to June 2024 is about 10 million.
Trump also claimed that under the Biden-Harris administration, “millions of people” would enter the country every month. However, this does not match official figures, as CBP says there were 205,019 encounters nationwide in June.
He said, again without providing evidence, that other countries are taking illegal immigrants “out of prisons and detention centers” and “bringing them to the United States.”
Illegal immigration chart
Trump again credited saving his life with a chart he showed at the Pennsylvania rally where he was shot, which showed that during his final week in office we had “the lowest numbers on illegal immigration.”
In reality, the graph was misleading, because the number of unauthorized border crossings was not at its lowest when Biden left office. In January 2021, his last month in office, there were about 75,000 encounters at the southwest border, according to official data. In July 2024, under the Biden administration, there were about 57,000 encounters.
The chart was titled “Illegal Immigration to the United States” and included data going back to 2012. It showed that the number of illegal border crossings would peak in 2023 and was accompanied by numerous annotations showing policy changes over the years, including the implementation of DACA by President Barack Obama and the tariffs on Mexico imposed by Trump.
Although numbers dropped sharply at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, by the end of Trump’s presidency, the number of illegal border crossings was actually relatively low compared to the Biden administration.
Trump cited an immigration chart he had on hand at his rally in Pennsylvania as the reason he survived an assassination attempt. The chart was later displayed behind him at the Republican National Convention as he accepted his nomination.
Trump had turned around a split second before the shot was fired and glanced at the graphic showing illegal border crossings on a large screen behind him, and the bullet grazed his ear.
“That was the table that saved my life,” Trump told delegates in Milwaukee.
Patrick Semansky
Border Tsar
Trump again referred to Harris as Biden’s “border czar,” although she never officially held that title – despite the fact that she was indeed involved in immigration policy. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is officially in charge of issues related to border security.
Trump told Musk during the interview: “She was the border czar, and people can’t let her get away with her disinformation campaign. Now she says she wasn’t really involved – she was in full control.”
Although she is not the “border czar” that Republicans portrayed her as during the presidential campaign, Harris’ record on immigration policy is under scrutiny by Republicans and others.
Biden had tasked Harris with coordinating diplomatic relations in the hope of improving conditions in countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and encouraging potential migrants to stay in their home country.
Crime rate in Venezuela
Trump said crime in Venezuela has dropped by 72 percent because criminals moved north. He said the Venezuelan government has expelled criminals from the country and sent them to the United States.
Trump said this had led to a decline in crime in Venezuela, but he provided no evidence to support his claim.
However, there is evidence that crime has decreased in Venezuela. According to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, part of the Laboratory of Social Sciences (LACSO) of Venezuela, the number of violent deaths has decreased. It found that the death rate in 2023 was 26.8 per 100,000 inhabitants.
“This represents a significant decrease of 8.5 points compared to the figures recorded in 2021 and 2022, which were 34.9 and 35.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively,” a report said.
The report concludes: “In 2023, Venezuela experienced a decline in violence, which we attribute to the decline in crime that we can describe as ‘unorganized’, as well as to the concentration and monopolization of violence associated with powerful criminal organizations and their concentration in some niches of opportunity.
“The decline in ‘unorganized’ violence, which causes high mortality rates, has been slowed by the loss of opportunities for crime and the resulting exodus of criminals and criminal gangs from the country, as well as the high emigration rate of young people, who have historically been the main victims of crime.”
However, studies have also shown that American citizens overall are more likely to commit crimes than immigrants.
According to one expert, Trump’s most frequently repeated statements about illegal immigration are inaccurate.
Professor William Hurst, co-director of the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge, said Newsweek that Trump is trying to “stirring up fear and anger about immigration.”
“A high percentage of everything Trump says is exaggerated, misleading or false. It seems that this interview stayed true to his style in that regard. I don’t know how much it might sway voters, because many who would likely believe such claims probably already do so.
“In my opinion, Trump is trying to stoke and perpetuate a general sense of fear and anger about immigration rather than convincing anyone of any specific claims. He also wants to create distrust of Harris and her ability to solve the problem.
“I think he’s been somewhat successful. What surprises me is that the Democrats’ counterpoint – that Trump used his influence with Republican members of Congress to torpedo bipartisan border legislation that would have introduced much stricter controls – has had little political traction.”
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