Category: Fact Check

Una serie de publicaciones en las redes sociales afirman que China ha prohibido la Coca-Cola para el consumo humano y la ha clasificado como material de limpieza. 

“En una decisión sin precedentes, el Comité Central Chino para la Calidad de los Alimentos ha anunciado la prohibición de la venta de Coca-Cola para consumo humano en todo el país”, dice una publicación en Facebook del 21 de enero. 

Esta también afirma que “la popular bebida carbonatada, producida por la American Coca-Cola Company, será transferida a la categoría de líquidos sanitarios recomendados para la limpieza de tuberías”.

Pero eso no es cierto.

La publicación fue marcada como parte del esfuerzo de Meta para combatir las noticias falsas y la desinformación en su plataforma. (Lea más sobre nuestra colaboración con Meta, propietaria de Facebook e Instagram).

La publicación también dice que “esta drástica medida se basa en una exhaustiva investigación científica”. También menciona estudios que supuestamente se realizaron con más de 500 prisioneros, donde se encontró que el consumo continuo de Coca-Cola causaba graves consecuencias para la salud.

Pero la publicación no enlaza a los supuestos estudios, ni hemos encontrado pruebas de estos. 

Una página web en ruso, la cual afirma que sus textos “son parodias grotescas de la realidad y no son noticias reales”, publicó en 2018 un artículo diciendo que China prohibió la Coca-Cola.

PolitiFact realizó una búsqueda en páginas web del gobierno de la República Popular China y de palabras clave en español e inglés y esta no ofrece resultado sobre la supuesta decisión del país asiático de prohibir la Coca-Cola para el consumo humano. La administración que regula los alimentos en China es la Administración Estatal de Alimentos y Medicamentos de China y no encontramos existencia de un supuesto Comité Central Chino para la Calidad de los Alimentos.

Tampoco encontramos ningún comunicado oficial al respecto en la página web de Coca-Cola en China. Tradujimos el texto al español a través del traductor automático de Google.

Un representante de prensa de Coca-Coca dijo a PolitiFact que la afirmación es falsa.

No encontramos ningún reporte en la prensa diciendo que China prohibió la Coca-Cola. En la página web de Swire Coca-Cola, el embotellador de Coca-Cola en China, no hay indicación de que hayan retirado el producto de su portfolio.

La revista CEOMagazine el 29 de enero publicó una entrevista con el presidente de la unidad operativa de China y Mongolia de Coca-Cola, Gilles Leclerc. La entrevista no menciona la supuesta prohibición.

Ya que no hay evidencia de que China prohibió la Coca-Cola para el consumo humano, calificamos la publicación como Falsa. 

Lea más reportes de PolitiFact en Español aquí.

---

Debido a limitaciones técnicas, partes de nuestra página web aparecen en inglés. Estamos trabajando en mejorar la presentación.

Days before senators unveiled a immigration bill aimed at slowing illegal immigration, Elon Musk riffed on a common myth that Democrats want mass illegal immigration to gain more voters. 

“Biden’s strategy is very simple: 1. Get as many illegals in the country as possible. 2. Legalize them to create a permanent majority – a one-party state,” Musk posted Feb. 2 on X. “That is why they are encouraging so much illegal immigration. Simple, yet effective.” 

Over one week, Musk posted about immigration about two dozen times; another post said that “every deportation is a lost vote.” The morning after a trio of bipartisan senators unveiled the immigration bill, Musk wrote, “The long-term goal of the so-called ‘Border Security’ bill is enabling illegals to vote! It will do the total opposite of securing the border.”

Musk’s statement echoes a recent statement by former President Donald Trump, who said, “That’s why they are allowing these people to come in — people that don’t speak our language — they are signing them up to vote.” We rated that Pants on Fire. 

Such statements align with conspiracy theories about the “great replacement,” which claim white people of European descent are deliberately being replaced with nonwhite people. 

Musk provided no evidence to show such a Biden strategy exists. And the claim doesn’t add up, because it takes immigrants years to become U.S. citizens, and there’s no guarantee that immigrants who gain citizenship will vote for Democrats. 

We emailed the X press account and received an automatic reply saying, “busy now, please check back later.” 

It takes many years for immigrants to become voting citizens 

Musk called this alleged strategy “very simple” and “effective,” but it’s neither. 

Federal law requires citizenship as a condition to vote in national elections. Gaining citizenship can take a decade or longer. 

Interacting with the government, including trying to vote, is something immigrants in the country illegally try to avoid, Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist, previously told PolitiFact: “They are not going to go register to vote and expose themselves.”

Occasionally, noncitizens have been prosecuted for voting. When noncitizens register to vote, it is often in error.

Biden supports new Senate bill that doesn’t have path to citizenship 

Musk’s X post included a screenshot of a January 2021 Associated Press article about Biden’s plan to ask Congress to create a path for citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. But Biden’s efforts stalled because his proposed 2021 bill did not advance.

Biden has said if it passes, he will sign the new Senate legislation that is considerably tougher on immigration. If fully implemented, the proposed legislation would decrease the number of immigrants permitted into the country because of its higher standard to be considered for asylum. 

It’s unclear whether the bill has the votes to pass the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said it is dead on arrival.

Michelle Mittelstadt, a spokesperson for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said the new legislation “does not provide any path to citizenship for anyone currently in the country illegally and would not in any way expedite legal permanent residence for any future border arrivals.”

“It takes on average 5 years in green card status before a person can become a U.S. citizen, so no one would instantly gain the right to vote,” Mittelstadt said.

And there is no guarantee that immigrants who become citizens will vote for Democrats. 

Experts have told us it’s ridiculous to make assumptions about how immigrants crossing the border now will vote in the future if they gain citizenship.

Musk’s comments spread misinformation about elections

Since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, the platform now known as X has removed guardrails designed to restrict the flow of mis- and disinformation. 

It’s easy to discount such “conspiracy theory nonsense” from random trolls on X, but it’s powerful when it comes from Musk who owns the platform, said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, a group that advocates for voting rights.

Democracies require participation, and falsehoods “only increase the likelihood that people will lose faith in our elections and simply opt out,” Gutierrez said.

Our ruling

Musk said Biden’s strategy is to “get as many illegals in the country as possible” and “legalize them to create a permanent majority.” 

The path to U.S. citizenship, which is required for voting in federal elections, can take a decade, so the current influx of immigrants would not lead to a significant number of new voters for many years, if ever. 

Even when immigrants become voting citizens, it doesn’t mean the United States will become a one-party nation. 

Biden currently supports a Senate immigration bill that does not create a broad path to citizenship. 

We rate this statement False.  

RELATED: No, the Senate immigration bill does not allow 5,000 people to illegally enter the U.S. daily

RELATED: Trump’s claim that millions of immigrants are signing up to vote illegally is Pants on Fire!

RELATED: Biden Promise Tracker including promises about pathway to citizenship, immigration judges and refugee admissions

Some social media users are claiming the key to weight loss is simple: accessorize with a bracelet.

A Jan. 23 Facebook video showed clips of people wearing what it described as “humanic bracelets.” Dramatic before-and-after footage showed the supposed results of jewelry-caused weight loss.

The post’s caption read, “I have been wearing (a) Humanic bracelet for 4 weeks and this turned my tummy back into its normal state! Absolutely recommended!” It then provided a link where people could learn more and buy the product.

The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Nearly six years after a 19-year-old fatally shot 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida Republicans are pushing to lower the legal age for buying rifles and other long guns back to 18.

Lawmakers in 2018 raised the purchase age to 21 following revelations that Stoneman Douglas shooter Nikolas Cruz had legally purchased the AR-15-style weapon he used in the attack.

Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina was killed in the shooting, testified against lowering the age. “Our current law is working,” he said during a Jan. 30 Criminal Justice Subcommittee hearing in Tallahassee. “I implore each of you to remember that law is written in the blood of the victims, including my beautiful daughter, Gina.”

Jayden D’Onofrio, 19, also spoke against the bill, recalling that he was in middle school nearby when Cruz attacked the high school. “Consider the facts,” D’Onofrio said, “18-to-20-year-olds are three times more likely to commit gun homicides.” 

Several speakers repeated D’Onofrio’s claim before the subcommittee advanced HB 1223 along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. (It has one more committee before it can be heard on the House floor.)

We wondered: Does data show the age cohort having that high of a propensity to fatally use firearms against others? And if so, why?

Data shows younger Americans are likelier to commit fatal shootings

Crime data in the United States is notoriously incomplete, but experts agreed that general trends from state and FBI data show people ages 18 to 20 — and in many datasets people in their early-to-mid 20s — are likelier to commit deadly shootings than other age groups. 

Gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety said in a June fact sheet that “data show that 18-to-20-year-olds commit gun homicides at triple the rate of adults 21 and older.” 

The group’s media office said researchers arrived at that calculation using the FBI’s supplementary homicide report and the U.S. Census American Community Survey from 2016 to 2020. Everytown’s researchers said they considered variables in the FBI data, including crime type, weapon and offender’s age. Researchers then used census population data to estimate each age group’s rates of committing a fatal shooting. (In most datasets, “firearms” includes both long guns and handguns.)

Federal law requires people to be 21 to buy handguns, but some states permit buying long guns as young as 18. Florida’s law, and the proposed bill, is centered on long guns, which include rifles, carbines, shotguns and submachine guns. The AR-15 semi-automatic rifle falls under this category.

After an 18-year-old shot and killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022, Cassandra Crifasi, research and policy director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, discussed how much likelier people in that age group are to commit violent acts.  

“We know that 18-to-20-year-olds have some of the highest risk for gun homicide perpetration, so this is a risky group when they have firearms,” Crifasi said. “But very few states have done anything to address gun access among this age group.”

Jeff Asher, a data analyst with expertise in evaluating criminal justice data, looked at data from Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Supplementary Homicide Report. The report’s 2020 figures (the most recent year with complete data) showed that 18-to-20-year-olds were identified as perpetrators in fatal shootings at “three times the rate of 16-year-olds” and about “three times the rate of a person in their 30s,” he said. They were the offenders at nearly twice the rate of people in their 20s, Asher found.  

Daniel Webster, distinguished research scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, told PolitiFact that FBI data on murders and nonnegligent manslaughters that he has studied over the years show 18 as the peak age for homicide offenders, followed closely by 19 and 20. In 2021, about 81% of homicides involved firearms, according to Pew Research Center. 

“It’s not a direct measure, precisely, but it’s a pretty darn good proxy,” Webster said. 

James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has maintained a database on U.S. mass killings dating back to 1976, said he’s found that the rate of gun homicides starts to increase around age 14, and peaks around age 20.

Fox looked at homicide data from 2016 to 2020 and found that 18-to-20-year-olds comprise 4% of the U.S. population, but commit 17% of gun homicides and 16% of gun homicides by rifle. 

“Gun homicides are particularly youth-dominated,” Fox said. “I would like to see the age (for purchasing firearms) be 25, which would be consistent with the data and what we know about brain development. At least, it should be the same as handguns, which is 21.”

Brain development, societal factors may be behind the spike, experts say

The human brain doesn’t finish developing until people are in their mid-to-late 20s. The prefrontal cortex, the brain region responsible for executive control, including skills such as planning, prioritizing and making well-reasoned decisions, is one of the last parts to mature. 

Criminologists, gun researchers and health policy experts have long said that this lack of development is a primary driver of impulsive behavior among young people. Laws that raised the legal drinking age for alcohol to 21, they said, arose out of data that showed there was inherent riskiness in allowing 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds easy access to alcohol. 

“People that age can be impulsive, impatient and imprudent, and will often make actions without fully thinking about the consequences for themselves, much less their victims,” Fox said.

The time period is key. The structure of high school is gone, Webster said, presenting a transitional period in which many people in this age group can act in dangerous, impulsive ways. It’s also cultural, he said, as the vast majority of gun homicides are committed by young men who are often trying to demonstrate that they aren’t weak, and are willing to be violent.

“You’ve got cultural reasons, you’ve got biological reasons, you’ve got changing social positions,” Webster said. “All of this makes this group far more vulnerable to doing really dangerous things.”

PolitiFact Copy Chief Matthew Crowley contributed to this report.

RELATED: Why does federal law make it easier for 18-year-olds to buy AR-15s than handguns? 

The number of opioid deaths has been steadily growing in Wisconsin, a fact that has been shown in data since the early 2000s. 

As the number of deaths has continued to rise, except for a small drop in the year before the pandemic, opioids and their use both illicitly and legally has come under fire, with politicians taking aim at how to solve the problem. 

In a Jan. 21 post ton X, formerly, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., took aim at the “unacceptable” number of opioid deaths in Wisconsin over the next few years. 

“Wisconsin had over 1400 opioid deaths in 2022,” she said. 

Is that true? 

Opioid deaths have increased because of fentanyl

When we contacted Baldwin’s team, it pointed to data from Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services showing that 1,421 deaths in 2022 were related to opioids in the state. 

That number is slightly lower than previous year’s number of 1,427 opioid deaths, but overall, Wisconsin has seen an explosion in the number of deaths related to the drugs. In 2006, the state reported 628 deaths, and since then, the numbers have been growing. 

Opioids are a class of drugs that alleviate pain and may produce a pleasurable effect for their takers. They can be used in several different ways, including a prescription after an injury or surgery to help with pain. But oftentimes, they’re used in nonmedical ways, to cope with painful emotions, trauma or other life experiences. 

Some of the most well-known opioids are prescription pain relievers, fentanyl and heroin. 

The drugs are risky because the brain and body can develop a tolerance to the drugs quickly, meaning more is needed to feel the same effect. That can quickly fuel dependence on the drug, leading to opioid use disorder. 

In Wisconsin, the largest driver in recent years of opioid-related deaths has been synthetic opioids, and in particular, fentanyl, said Paul Krupski, policy director of the state health department. Although the department saw the number of opioid deaths drop in the year before the pandemic hit, it rose again with the confinement to home, as well as the anxiety and depression rates that increased during the pandemic. 

“Unfortunately, the pandemic threw a wrench into just about everything in everybody’s life, and one of those things that we know for certain happened is that, unfortunately, people turned to using substances or in some cases, using substances more regularly as a way to cope and deal with some issues,” he said in an interview. 

“And then really, it was just real unfortunate timing with the fact that fentanyl had really been introduced into the illicit drug supply.”

Fentanyl is often mixed into products sold illegally, which allows for the sales of smaller quantities with stronger effects. Dealers can cut their costs by adding bulking agents to fentanyl, too, making it much cheaper to buy than heroin and a reason for the dramatic increase in opioid deaths. Fentanyl can be mixed into heroin, but it is also commonly mixed with cocaine.

In 2022, 91% of people who died from an opioid-related death had a synthetic opioid, such a fentanyl, in their systems, Krupski said. And of those 91%, 72% had another substance found in their system, more commonly a stimulant such as cocaine. 

But despite its popularity for being mixed with other substances, fentanyl is lethal in small amounts. Krupski said that the drug is largely to blame for opioid-related deaths in recent years. 

“I think that the emergence of fentanyl and the prevalence of fentanyl throughout the illicit drug supply is really the primary reason that we continue to see a rise in opioid related deaths in our state, as well as nationally,” he said. 

Our ruling

Baldwin claimed Wisconsin had over 1,400 opioid deaths in Wisconsin in 2022. 

Data from the state’s Department of Health show that there were, in fact, 1,421 deaths in the state that year linked to opioid use. 

We rate this claim as True. 

Killer Mike took home three trophies from the Feb. 4 Grammy Awards, but the rapper’s evening ended with him in handcuffs, as police led him away from the Crypto.com Arena.

The rapper, whose real name is Michael Render, won best rap album for his album “Michael,” and best rap song and best rap performance for “Scientists and Engineers.” Soon after Killer Mike  accepted his trophies in a pre-show ceremony, The Hollywood Reporter shared a video on X of him being escorted from the building.

Theories about Killer Mike’s arrest proliferated on social media, with posts claiming it was because he wouldn’t endorse President Joe Biden for reelection in a Feb. 2 appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

“Killer Mike arrested at Grammys after statements about Biden,” read sticker text of a Feb. 5 TikTok video that shared a clip of the Maher interview. 

We found multiple TikTok videos, X posts and Facebook posts that tried to connect the Maher interview to Killer Mike’s arrest.

In the Maher interview, Killer Mike declined to endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election and urged people to vote for the candidate who supports their policies. Maher asked, “You can’t get yourself to vote for Biden over Trump?”

Killer Mike responded, “Can he get himself to apologize for the crime bill?” The rapper appeared to be referring to a 1994 bill Biden supported  when he was a senator that critics often blame for causing mass incarceration. The rapper suggested Biden create a board composed of people affected by drug laws to advise him on how to fix federal prisons. “If he can do that, absolutely I can. So, my challenge is out there.”

Maher and Killer Mike continued to spar over the election in the show’s “Overtime” segment.

We found no evidence such as police statements or credible news reports that Killer’s Mike’s comments about Biden had anything to do with the rapper’s arrest. The Los Angeles Police Department said he was charged with battery for a “physical altercation.”

The Los Angeles Police Department’s media relations division posted on X that a man was arrested about 4 p.m. local time after the altercation at the 700 block of Chick Hearn Court, which is inside or near the arena hosting the Grammy Awards. 

A follow-up Los Angeles Police Department post identified the man as Michael Render, 48, and said he was booked for misdemeanor battery and was being prepared for release about 8:30 p.m. local time. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s records confirm Render was released on his own recognizance shortly after he was booked, and has a Feb. 29 court date set. He could face a $2,000 fine and/or up to six months in county jail, according to California’s penal code.

Police haven’t released details of the altercation. The celebrity website TMZ cited unnamed law enforcement sources who said the altercation was with a security guard, but PolitiFact was unable to independently verify that information.

We rate the claim that Killer Mike was arrested at the Grammy Awards because he declined to endorse Biden Pants on Fire!

On ABC’s “This Week,” two members of the show’s roundtable segment sparred over President Joe Biden’s economic accomplishments, including whether Black unemployment is at an all-time low.

Donna Brazile, a longtime Democratic campaign official, and Reince Priebus, a former Republican National Committee chair and Donald Trump’s first White House chief of staff, split on the question Feb. 4.

Brazile touted Biden’s record: “He’s growing the economy. He’s investing in manufacturing. Black unemployment is the lowest in American history.”

Priebus responded, “No, it’s not.” 

They continued:

Brazile: “I mean, so, yes, it is.”

Priebus: “No, it’s not.”

Brazile: “Oh, seriously?”

Priebus: “Black unemployment?”

Brazile: “Black unemployment. I mean, look, we’re not going back to slavery, OK?”

Host George Stephanopoulos cut off the exchange before it could be resolved. So, we decided to check the data.

Brazile has a point: The all-time low was set under Biden less than a year ago, when Black unemployment fell to 4.8% in April 2023. (This statistic has been kept since 1972, so “all time” really means about five decades.)

Black unemployment has risen slightly since then, while remaining low historically.

By the most recent month, January 2024, the rate had ticked up half a percentage point to 5.3%. That ties the low achieved under Biden’s predecessor, Trump, set in August and September of 2019.

Trump’s supporters can also say that his record on Black unemployment is strong historically — at least until the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Before Trump’s presidency, the record low for Black unemployment had been 7%. But in about two-thirds of the pre-pandemic months of Trump’s presidency, the rate was equal to or lower than 7%, often setting records that were eventually broken during Biden’s presidency.

Brazile told PolitiFact she had nothing to add. Priebus did not answer an inquiry for this article.

Our ruling

Brazile said that under Biden, “Black unemployment is the lowest in American history.”

The all-time low for Black unemployment was set less than a year ago under Joe Biden. Since that record was set, Black unemployment has risen half a percentage point. 

We rate the statement Mostly True.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley recently said she believes that states should have the right to do what their residents want to do — even if that means seceding from the United States.

In a Jan. 31 episode of “The Breakfast Club” radio show, host Charlamagne tha God asked Haley about Texas’ border dispute with the federal government and whether she still believes states have the right to secede, pointing to her previous remarks on the subject.

On the radio show, Haley acknowledged that Texas is not going to secede, but said, “If Texas decides they want to do that, they can do that. … If that whole state says, ‘We don’t want to be part of America anymore,’ I mean, that’s their decision to make.” 

Haley later walked back her comments in a Feb. 4 CNN interview, saying the Constitution doesn’t allow states to secede. Haley’s campaign did not answer PolitiFact’s request for comment.

“What I do think they have the right to do is have the power to protect themselves and do all that,” Haley said on CNN. “Texas has talked about seceding for a long time. The Constitution doesn’t allow for that. But what I will say is … where’s that coming from? That’s coming from the fact that people don’t think that (the) government is listening to them.”

For months, Texas and the federal government have been locked in a tense standoff over border security measures as record numbers of migrants illegally cross into the U.S. from Mexico. Meanwhile, social media has been awash with claims about Texas seceding and warnings of an impending civil war.

“Texas is about to become its own country to stop a civil war from occurring,” a Jan. 30 Instagram post claimed.

To address Haley’s initial comment and the internet buzz, we asked constitutional law experts whether a state could secede from the U.S. The consensus was a resounding “no.”

Experts said the Civil War tested and settled this question 159 years ago, and Haley’s radio show remarks ignored this significant part of American history. It wasn’t the first time Haley, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, had misrepresented Civil War history.

The Constitution does not say anything explicitly for or against secession, experts said.

“But it’s pretty significant evidence that during the debates over ratification, when states were deciding whether or not to join this new union, no one said, ‘Well, if you don’t like it, you can always leave,’” said Kermit Roosevelt, a University of Pennsylvania law professor.

Roosevelt said if Haley was making a moral or political argument, she could appeal to the Declaration of Independence as the 11 seceding southern states did at the time of the Civil War.

“But that’s not the Constitution, and the aspect of the Declaration that we consider foundational to America now is more ‘all men are created equal’ than ‘it is the right of the people to alter or abolish’ their government,” Roosevelt said. “So Haley is offering a Confederate view of the Constitution that cost us over half a million lives.”

After the Civil War, in 1869, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Texas v. White that the U.S. is “an indestructible union” and states do not have the right to unilaterally secede.

“When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation,” the ruling stated. “There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.”

The late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia also weighed in on secession’s legality: “If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede,” Scalia wrote in a 2006 letter.

If Texas or another state wanted to secede and the state reached an agreement via Congress with the rest of the country, then it might work, said Brian Kalt, a Michigan State University law professor.

However, it’s more likely a secession attempt “would constitute an insurrection against the United States that the central government would be entirely justified in suppressing by armed force, just as Lincoln did the Confederacy,” said Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri law professor.

Our ruling

Haley said, “If that whole state says, ‘We don’t want to be part of America anymore,’ I mean, that’s their decision to make.” 

Constitutional law experts told us the Civil War’s outcome and Supreme Court precedent say the opposite. We rate Haley’s claim False.

RELATED: A primer on Civil War history and what Donald Trump and Nikki Haley got wrong

RELATED: Razor wire and a blocked Border Patrol. What’s going on in Eagle Pass, Texas?

A new Senate immigration bill allows the Biden administration to bar most migrants from seeking asylum if unauthorized immigration at the border reaches a specific number a day. 

The bill is sponsored by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. But it’s facing a tough outlook in the House, where Republican leaders pledged it will not get a vote because it would “incentivize” more illegal immigration.

“Here’s what the people pushing this ‘deal’ aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., in a Feb. 4 X post.

But that’s not what the bill does. 

The bill raises the legal standard to pass initial asylum screenings, expedites the asylum process and funds additional detention space. It also compels the Homeland Security secretary to use an emergency authority to bar people from requesting asylum if officials record 5,000 encounters a day over seven consecutive days. But that’s not the same as accepting 5,000 people into the U.S. daily.

“This is one of the most widely mischaracterized provisions in the Senate bill,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute’s communications director. “The legislation would not allow for the entry of ‘5,000 illegal immigrants a day.’”

The bill’s Republican, Independent and Democratic sponsors have all pushed back against Scalise’s characterization. 

5,000 encounters at the southern border would trigger emergency authority

The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 changes immigration law to let the executive branch quickly stop people from coming in through U.S. borders and prevent them from applying for asylum under certain conditions.

The bill allows the Homeland Security secretary to exercise this authority if there are an average of 4,000 daily encounters at the southern border during seven consecutive days. 

And the bill requires the Homeland Security secretary to exercise this authority if there are:

• An average of 5,000 encounters a day during seven consecutive days, or

• 8,500 encounters on any single day. 

In December 2023, the latest month with available data, there were 302,034 encounters at the southern border. The daily average of 9,743 encounters would have triggered the emergency authority.

Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden used a similar authority, Title 42, to mitigate COVID-19’s spread and quickly expel migrants at the border. But that policy could be used only during a public health emergency. 

This is not the same as letting in 5,000 people a day

The encounters-based trigger doesn’t mean the U.S. is allowing “5,000 illegal immigrants” to enter the U.S. 

“This is not a number that is ‘allowed in.’ It is a threshold of ARRIVALS that triggers a new authority,” wrote Theresa Cardinal Brown, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s senior adviser for Immigration and border policy, in an email.

Encounters track the number of times immigration officials stop people trying to enter the U.S., not the number of people who are released into the country. 

“There is this idea that we control how many migrants attempt illegal crossings. We do not,” Brown said. “We control what happens once we encounter someone who has already crossed the border illegally.”

The emergency authority would change what happens when people try to cross the border. But the bill doesn’t allow people to just come in without any application of immigration law.

“Once that trigger is activated,” Mittelstadt said, “no one crossing the border between ports of entry would be eligible to be considered for asylum.”

How immigration law works today and what the emergency authority would change

Under current immigration law, someone who tries to illegally enter the U.S. can be quickly removed without going to immigration court unless that person signals “an intention to apply for asylum,” Brown said.

However, even when people don’t seek asylum “we don’t just ‘turn them back,’” she said. Instead, border officials take migrants into custody and try to find them in U.S. databases, check their background checks to identify any threats and then try to deport them, she said.

Mexican migrants can quickly be sent back to Mexico. However, if Mexico doesn’t agree to receive people from other countries, the U.S. keeps them in custody until deportation to their home countries can be arranged.

However, limited resources — not enough border officials, detention space or immigration judges — results in some people being released into the U.S. to determine later whether they can stay, Brown said. 

The emergency authority would temporarily circumvent that process. Even then, Brown said, the authority’s effectiveness will hinge on available resources and Mexico’s cooperation. 

“In short, there is no authority that Congress could pass that would allow for a ‘complete and total shutdown of the border,’” Brown said. “That’s just not how borders work in any real sense. Especially not our border with Mexico.”

Our ruling

Scalise said the Senate’s border bill “accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day.”

The bill directs the Homeland Security secretary to stop people from coming in and to deny them from applying for asylum if there are an average 5,000 migrant encounters at the southern border over seven days.

But that doesn’t mean that 5,000 people would be let in each day before then. A person can be encountered and not let into the country. The encounters data tracks how many times officials stop migrants, not how many are let in.

Before the emergency authority is triggered, immigration law will continue to be enforced with a higher standard for asylum interviews, a faster adjudication process and increased detention space.

The number of encounters triggers the emergency authority, and the authority changes what happens when people try to cross the border. The bill does not allow any number of people to illegally cross the border.

We rate the claim False.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Biden administration are feuding intensely over federal access to the state’s southern border. But Russia has not stepped in to provide artillery, as some social media posts claim.

One TikTok video that gained more than 42,000 likes featured screenshots of what looked like a news article with the headline, “Russia to supply weapons to Texas if needed to Fight Biden Border Heist.” 

TikTok identified these posts as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

The Jan. 27 article the TikTok video highlighted was first published on “The Hal Turner Radio Show” website. The show has shared false claims and conspiracy theories before. 

The original article claimed that “Russia may supply heavy weapons to Texas so as to defend itself and its Border from any attempt by Biden to forcibly re-open the Texas Border to illegal aliens.”

The article cited no supporting evidence, but quoted Russian diplomat and United Nations representative Vasily Nebenzya as saying, “It is important to understand that by supplying weapons to Texas, Russia does not become a party to the conflict.”  

Evgeny Uspenskiy, a spokesperson from the Russian Mission to the United Nations, told PolitiFact in an email that the “information is fake” and Nebenzya never said the statement attributed to him in the article. 

We searched Google and the Nexis news database and found no credible news articles about Nebenzya making such a statement, nor did we find any credible reports about Russia supplying Texas with weapons.

We rate the claim that Nebenzya spoke about Russia supplying Texas with weapons False. 

RELATED: Razor wire and a blocked Border Patrol. What’s going on in Eagle Pass, Texas?