Before acquiring the first detainees, US President Donald Trump toured the Everglades’ Florida crocodile Alcatraz immigration detention facility.
“It’s known as the very appropriate Crocodile Alcatraz because I saw the outside and it’s not the place I want to go hiking,” Trump told the media at a live streaming event Tuesday. “But soon, the facility will house some of the most frightening immigrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.”
Trump has campaigned for the presidency with a promise to tackle immigration, but faces a shortage of detention classes. One big and beautiful bill, Trump’s tax and spending plan, passed the Senate at a Florida stop and included $150 billion on the deportation agenda over four years.
State officials soon built the expected 5,000-bed facility to detain migrants on a decades-old landing zone. The Department of Homeland Security has fixed the one-year cost of operating the facility at $450 million.
Florida officials, including former Trump rival governor Ron DeSantis, joined the president and Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem for the tour. DeSantis said Noem’s team said the facility would be opened to welcome detainees after Trump’s departure.
Trump has disrupted questions about the possibility of losing Medicaid healthcare coverage under the Tax and Expenses Act, so he has spoken for over an hour, warmly responding to a proposal to arrest former President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mallorcas, and has repeated frequent complaints about showerheads that lack adequate water pressure. Meanwhile, Noem said the US immigration and customs enforcement agency has detained “cannibals” who “started eating themselves” on planes.
Here are some fact-checks for Trump’s remarks:
Trump’s “illegal alien” cost estimate comes from groups advocating low levels of immigration
While talking about the goal of cutting federal budgets, Trump said:
This is a lifetime estimate by an organization that supports low-level immigration. Critics have problems with that.
The White House cited a 2024 testimony to a House of Representatives committee by Stephen a Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies.
In his written testimony, Camarota said: He is based on the impact of education levels on immigration’s net finances.
Camarota said estimates include whether the percentage of U.S. immigrants illegally use welfare programs, the amount of benefits they received, and the use of public schools and emergency services.
Other analyses show positive economic impacts from undocumented immigrants in the United States.
In its 2024 report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, discovered both the costs and benefits of increased immigration during the Biden era. Net found that the CBO discovered positive impacts in several areas.
The CBO estimated that the surge in immigration increased its gross domestic product (a measure of overall economic activity) by $8.9 trillion over a decade. The CBO also estimated that increased tax revenue from immigrants would reduce the federal deficit nearly $1 trillion over a decade.
Separately, the 2023 Libertarian Cato Institute found that “immigration generates around $1 trillion ($2024) in state, local and federal taxes.
Michael A. Clemens, an economist at George Mason University, told Politifact that the Center for Immigration Studies illegally counts US immigrants’ use of public schools as a cost, but he and other economists view public school funds as net profits.
Trump repeats “autopen” conspiracy theory about Biden
Trump said: “We have a lot of bad criminals. …It was an unforced mistake. It was an incompetent president who allowed it to happen.
He was referring to the pro-Trump circle conspiracy theory. Biden was out of the loop during his presidency, allowing his aides to repeatedly forge his signature with a mechanical autopen to pursue his policy goals.
There was no evidence that Biden signed documents, whether by automatic pen or not, were made without his knowledge or consent. Everything Biden signed using an autopen would have been valid, legal experts say.
In March, we evaluated Trump’s claim that Biden’s pardon was ineffective because it was signed as a false autopen. The US presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, routinely signed pardons to their subordinates on their behalf.
Trump has mistakenly said that the policy bill targets Medicaid only.
During his visit, reporters asked Trump about one big beautiful bill that the Senate approved during his visit and its impact on Medicaid. “Do you say that an estimated 11.8 million people who could lose their health insurance are all wasted, fraud, and abuse?” the reporter asked.
Trump said: “No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying it’s going to be a very few number. That number will be wasted, fraud, abuse.”
Misrated a similar version of Trump’s statement, he found that Medicaid changes go beyond waste, fraud and abuse.
The 11.8 million figures come from a CBO analysis of the bill passed by the Senate.
While some provisions may improve detection of beneficiaries who are not eligible for compensation, other provisions in the House and Senate bill will modify healthcare programs to match low-income Americans’ ideology and Republican priorities.
The bill encourages the nation to halt the use of its own funds to illegally cover Americans. It requires people to do their jobs and do other approved activities to ensure profits. It is also prohibited by nonprofit organizations such as Planned Parenthood, which offers Medicaid payments to maintain gender and abortions among other services.
Other changes impose out-of-pocket and shorter windows for retrospective coverage. They change the program’s financial outlook but do not target waste, fraud, or abuse.
Trump doubles estimates of immigrant arrivals under Biden
Trump said: “Four years before I took office, Joe Biden allowed 21 million people, … illegal aliens, to infiltrate our country.”
The topic of this campaign remains false. During Biden’s tenure, immigration officers have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the US border around 10 million times. Considering “Got-Aways” (people avoiding border officials), the number will rise to around 11.6 million.
Meeting is not the same as admission. An encounter represents an event, so one person trying to cross a border counts as two encounters. Also, not everyone you meet enters the country. The Department of Homeland Security is estimated to have estimated around 4 million encounters under Biden.
During the Biden administration, around 3.8 million people were released to the United States and await immigration court hearings, Department of Homeland Security data is shown.
Politifact Staff Researcher’s Caryn Baird and staff writer Ella Moore contributed to this article.
