RICHMOND, Va. — Donald Trump and Nikki Haley both courted voters in Virginia in the days leading up to the state's Republican presidential primary.
Not surprisingly, just days after visiting Texas to view the U.S.-Mexico border and discuss immigration, the former president made border security the centerpiece of his campaign rally in Richmond Saturday evening.
VERIFY looked into two of the claims he made during his speech.
CLAIM
“We built 571 miles of border wall and got Mexico to send us 28,000 soldiers to guard our border, free of charge.”
SOURCES
Mark Morgan, former Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection
June 7, 2019 Joint Declaration and Supplementary Agreement Between the United States of America and Mexico
ANSWER
Mexico did increase its border security, but did not add 28,000 soldiers, and many of those were not near the U.S.-Mexico border.
WHAT WE FOUND
Former President Trump is correct that Mexico sent thousands of soldiers to the border at the request of the United States.
The two nations signed an agreement in June 2019 that covered many topics related to the flow of migrants. Among them was the enforcement of the Migrant Protection Protocols, or "remain in Mexico" policy, which forced migrants to remain on the southern side of the border while their asylum claim was processed in the U.S.
It also prescribed an increase in law enforcement operations within Mexico: "Mexico will take unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration, to include the deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border."
During a press briefing three months after the agreement was signed, Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan said Mexico deployed 25,000 troops in total, and 10,000 of them went to its border with Guatemala.
An analysis from the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute one year after the agreement was signed reached the same conclusion.
CLAIM
“The very first bill that Crooked Joe sent to Congress was a bill to turn illegal aliens into voting citizens.”
SOURCES
The White House
U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021
ANSWER
The first bill President Joe Biden asked Congress to pass provided a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants.
WHAT WE FOUND
Along with several executive orders, President Biden announced his first piece of preferred legislation on his first day in office and called on Congress to pass it.
He called it the U.S. Citizenship Act.
Part of the bill created a streamlined process for undocumented immigrants to get green cards, provided they waited five years and passed a background check. Three years after receiving a green card, if they passed a language and civics test and another background check, they could become citizens.
The U.S. Citizenship Act became H.R. 1177. The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives and referred to committee, but it was never heard.