Today the White House sent out a release to further perpetuate its lies about its own policy to separate children from their families. Here’s the truth:

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: “Congress needs to close the loopholes that are preventing common sense immigration enforcement.”

FACT: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION POLICY, NOT ANY LAW PASSED BY CONGRESS, WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES AT THE BORDER

• Dallas Morning News: “The administration contends that it is forced to separate families because there is a law requiring it to do so, and that Democrats are to blame. In reality, mandatory family separation is a consequence of a policy decision that can be changed at any time.”

• ABC News: “Again, there is no law that says families crossing the border illegally must be separated, let alone one passed by Democrats. What’s really happening is that under the administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ enforcement, all parents are referred for prosecution and detained, effectively separating them from their children.”

FACT: TRUMP’S POLICY, NOT THE FLORES SETTLEMENT, HAS SPIKED FAMILY SEPARATIONS AT THE BORDER

• New York Times: “In other words, without the Trump administration’s new enforcement policy, the Flores settlement — and subsequent rulings clarifying its scope — alone would not have caused family separation at the border.”

• PolitiFact: “However, the agreement doesn’t mandate the separations occurring on the border, which have stepped up due to a Trump administration change in enforcement policy. If anything, the agreement focuses on ways to protect immigrant children and to reunite them with their families.”

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: “Approximately 90 percent of removal orders obtained against UACs each year result from one’s failure to appear at a hearing. Removal orders issued against UACs based on a failure to appear at an immigration hearing have risen over 1000 percent since FY 2009.”

FACT: THE WHITE HOUSE GROSSLY EXAGGERATED THE FAILURE OF UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS TO SHOW UP FOR COURT HEARINGS

• CNN: “According to the annual Justice Department yearbook of immigration statistics from fiscal year 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, 25% of immigration court cases were decided ‘in absentia’—without defendants. In that year, there were 137,875 cases. The number of cases decided ‘in absentia’ between fiscal year 2012 and fiscal year 2016 was between 11% and 28%.”

• CNN:“The Trump administration also ended a program last year that was bringing every single one of the undocumented immigrants the program served to court. The Family Case Management Program, ended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in June 2017, had a 100% attendance record at court hearings and a 99% ICE check-in and appointments record, according to a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report.”

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: “More than one-third of the 274 MS-13 members and affiliates arrested in the Federal, State, and local led ‘Operation Matador’ entered the country as UACs.”

FACT: IMMIGRANTS COMMIT FEWER CRIMES ON AVERAGE THAN NATIVE-BORN AMERICANS

• NBC News: “No Evidence Undocumented Immigrants Commit More Crimes”

• PBS: “Immigration Doesn’t Bring Crime Into U.S., Data Say”

• Washington Post Fact Checker: “This is another example of Trump cherry-picking a few cases to sell a grand — and misleading — narrative about immigrants and crime. Every demographic group has its share of criminals, but the research shows that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than the U.S.-born population.”

FACT: TRUMP’S MOVE TO RESCIND TPS PROTECTIONS FOR SALVADORANS COULD EMPOWER MS-13

• Business Insider: “Rescinding the program for Salvadoran — as well as Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Sudanese immigrants — is also part of Trump’s efforts to restrict legal and illegal immigration, which he has linked to crime.  Stripping Salvadorans in the US of their immigration status and forcing thousands of them back to El Salvador — where many have not been since 2001 — is likely to empower MS-13, a group that Trump has accused of turning US communities into ‘blood-stained killing fields’ and vowed to destroy.”