James Woods has drawn attention in recent years for his conservative views, but claims he’s leaving Hollywood to join a fellow actor in an environment that more aligns with his political values are inaccurate.
“Breaking,” a June 2 Facebook post said. “James Woods leaves Hollywood to join Mel Gibson’s new non-woke film studio.”
This 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.)
Representatives for Gibson didn’t respond to PolitiFact’s questions about his supposed “non-woke film studio,” but his publicist told Reuters in April that such a studio doesn’t exist.
Plus, this claim originated in May on a self-described satire site.
Searching online news sources for credible reports to corroborate the fake claim, we found only other social media posts. Among Woods’ most recent social media posts: snaps from the 2024 Academy Awards, from which he cheered on Oscar wins for the movie “Oppenheimer.”
We couldn’t find evidence to support another similar claim that was recently poached from a fake news site: that X owner Elon Musk had invested $1 billion in Gibson and actor Mark Wahlberg’s “new non-woke production studio.”
We rate claims Woods left Hollywood for Gibson’s “non-woke” studio False.
Antarctica is losing ice mass to the ocean, contributing to global sea level rise. But a popular video misrepresented work focused on Antarctic ice shelves — which float in the sea at the edges of the continent — to incorrectly suggest that “it is unclear if Antarctica is losing any ice on balance.”
Full Story
The Antarctic ice sheet is a vast mass of ice, accumulated over millennia via snowfall, that sits atop bedrock, covering nearly all of Antarctica. As the ice spreads outward and meets the ocean, some of it begins to float. These floating ice platforms, which surround about three-quarters of Antarctica, are called ice shelves.
Antarctic land ice loss into the ocean is an increasingly important contributor to global sea level rise. In contrast, ice shelf loss doesn’t directly cause sea level rise, as the ice is already floating in the ocean and displacing water. However, ice shelf changes can contribute to land ice loss, as ice shelves in some areas buttress land ice and slow its descent into the ocean.
A popular video from the Heartland Institute — which has a long history of casting doubt on climate science — minimized the significance of Antarctic ice loss and then questioned whether it’s happening at all. “The truth is, it is unclear if Antarctica is losing any ice on balance or if it’s currently experiencing a net gain,” the video’s narrator inaccurately said, citing two scientific papers.
“The statement is false,” Chad Greene, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told us in an email. “Antarctica has been losing sea ice, grounded ice, and floating ice shelf mass over the past few decades. Satellite analysis from NASA groups show trends of ice loss, and the same trends have been reported by independent research groups from around the world.”
We reached out to the Heartland Institute with questions about the video but have not gotten a reply. The video was originally posted on Facebook and YouTube but is no longer available on Facebook.
The first paper mentioned in the video to back up the claim is a 2015 study by NASA researchers. They found that from 1992 to 2001 and 2003 to 2008, Antarctica gained ice mass.
But other studies disagree with the finding that Antarctica was gaining ice, and a NASA press release about the study now contains a message saying, “The findings reported here conflict with over a decade of other measurements, including previous NASA studies.”
“[M]ore recent work shows clearly that on balance Antarctica is losing mass,” Jonathan Kingslake, who studies ice sheet evolution at Columbia Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told us in an email.
According to measurements from NASA satellites, since 2002 Antarctica has been losing an average of 140 billion metric tons of ice mass per year.
An ice shelf at the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula. Photo by Daniel / stock.adobe.com
The Heartland Institute video went on to incorrectly state that a 2023 paper looking at data from 2009 to 2019 confirmed the 2015 NASA findings. However, that paper looked at Antarctic ice shelf area — the floating ice at the edges of the continent, as we explained — and not ice sheet mass overall. Saying that the 2023 paper confirmed the earlier NASA findings “is totally misleading,” Kingslake said.
Additionally, data from a longer time frame does show loss of Antarctic ice shelf area, Greene said.
The Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the latest report from this United Nations body — found that both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets have been “losing mass since at least 1990, with the highest loss rate during 2010–2019” — a statement made with “high confidence.” And the ice sheet mass loss is expected to continue.
Antarctic Ice Loss Is Consequential
Earlier in the Heartland Institute video, the narrator did acknowledge Antarctic ice loss but minimized its importance.
“The media claims that Antarctica is losing ice six or more times faster than it was a few decades ago,” the video said. “But Antarctica was barely losing ice back then and it still is barely losing ice compared to its overall ice mass. Some satellite measurements estimate that the total ice loss each year from Antarctica is 3/10,000 of 1% of the continent’s ice mass. That’s not much.”
Media outlets have reported, based on various studies, that the Antarctic ice sheet as of the 2010s was melting six times faster than in the 1980s, or that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets combined were losing ice six times faster in the 2010s than in the 1990s.
It’s correct that Antarctica “is barely losing ice compared to its overall ice mass,” as the video said, given that Antarctica’s total ice mass is very large, Helen Amanda Fricker, a professor at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told us in a written response to our questions. But “I would turn this around and say that even a small % of a large number is not inconsequential,” she said. The Antarctic ice sheet contains enough ice — if it all melted — to raise sea level by 57 meters, or 187 feet, she said.
Oceanographer Laurence Padman, president and senior scientist at Earth and Space Research, a nonprofit research institute, told us that he couldn’t argue with the fraction of ice lost given in the video, based on rough calculations and given variation and uncertainties in annual ice loss. But “the important number is the sea level rise, not the fraction of the Antarctic ice sheet that is lost,” he said in a written response to our questions.
As of 2018, the global average sea level had risen by 7 to 15 centimeters (almost 3 to 6 inches) since 1971, according to the latest IPCC report, and was projected to rise by 10 to 25 centimeters (about 4 to 10 inches) more by 2050, even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. Melting of the Antarctic ice sheet caused 7% of sea level rise between 1971 and 2018, but its contribution to sea level rise has increased and will continue to increase.
Since 2016, the Antarctic ice sheet has been responsible for 14% of sea level rise, according to the IPCC report. In a low-emissions scenario, the Antarctic ice sheet could contribute to more than 20% of sea level rise by 2100, according to a graphic in the report’s FAQ section.
Lizz Ultee, a glaciologist at Middlebury College, explained that sea level rise is driven by two main processes: ocean water expansion as it gets warmer and melting of ice into the ocean.
Mountain glaciers melt more quickly due to warming temperatures than ice sheets because mountain glaciers are smaller, Ultee explained.But the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are playing an increasing role in sea level rise.
Currently, Greenland, which has a smaller ice sheet than Antarctica, is losing ice mass at a faster rate, but in the long term, Antarctica “has the most potential to contribute to very large sea level changes,” Ultee said.
Antarctic ice sheet loss will probably lead to up toabout 0.3 meters, or nearly 1 foot, of sea level rise by 2100, she said, and total sea level rise could be about half a meter to a meter (1.6 to 3.3 feet) by that time. Even if humans were to stop contributing to climate change by 2100, she said, Antarctica would continue to lose ice mass and contribute to sea level rise for centuries.
About a meter of sea level rise in 2100 would flood the homes of about 4 million people in the U.S., Ultee said, an estimate that doesn’t include people who would be at risk from higher storm surges or more frequent tidal flooding, or who would be cut off from essential services.
The Eastern Gulf of Mexico — from the Mississippi Delta to Florida — has already experienced some of the fastest rates of local sea level rise in the U.S., according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Important Role of Ice Shelves
As we’ve said, the Heartland Institute video also misrepresented data on ice shelves, incorrectly claiming a 2023 paper confirmed that the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining mass.
The 2023 paper, published in the Cryosphere, used satellite data to analyze the area of Antarctic ice shelves between 2009 and 2019, finding that 16 ice shelves grew in area and 18 got smaller. This translated to a net gain of 5,305 square kilometers in total ice shelf area, representing an increase of 0.4%.
But “this paper is about Antarctic ice shelves, which are only the floating portions of the ice in Antarctica,” Ultee said. Ice shelves are made up of ice that has flowed from the continent outward to the ocean and is floating. (Sea ice, which forms seasonally from the ocean and also floats, is distinct from ice shelves.)
Antarctic ice shelves, in white, are seen at the edge of the continent, which is largely covered in the ice sheet (grey). Credit: Agnieszka Gautier, National Snow and Ice Data Center
The work “does not support the assertion that the Antarctic ice sheet is not losing mass,” Ultee said.
Padman also said that the Cryosphere paper looked at one specific time period that doesn’t represent the full history of Antarctic ice shelf loss. Prior work, published in Nature in 2022, showed that Antarctic ice shelves lost 35,000 square kilometers of area between 1997 and 2004. The Cryosphere paper showed the ice shelves regaining “only about 15% of the earlier loss,” he said.
Greene, the NASA scientist, co-authored the Nature paper. In that study, “we used a longer, 24 year baseline and found overwhelming loss of ice shelf area since 1997,” he said. “We then looked at the calving history of the biggest ice shelves and found that they are all on track for major calving events in the next 10 or 15 years … meaning Antarctica as a whole is losing ice shelf mass overall.” (Ice shelf calving occurs when chunks of ice break off into the ocean.)
Additionally, ice shelf loss in specific areas is significant and indirectly influences sea level rise, experts told us.
“Ice shelves don’t directly contribute to sea level rise when they melt but rather, they act like buttresses to glaciers, keeping the ice from simply sliding into the ocean,” Greene said.
Padman added that “some areas of ice shelves affect ‘buttressing’ of grounded ice, while other areas don’t.” The ice shelves shown to be losing ice in the Cryosphere paper — many in West Antarctica — tend to be more important for buttressing the ice sheet than the ice shelves that are gaining ice.
“Even if East Antarctic ice shelves are gaining area and the West Antarctic is losing area, we still really care about the West Antarctic ice shelf area,” Ultee said.
Editor’s note: SciCheck’s articles providing accurate health information and correcting health misinformation are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.
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Padman, Laurie et al. “Confused about ice shelf decay and sea ice increase?” Scripps Glaciology Group website. Accessed 5 June 2024.
“Is an East Antarctic Melt Likely?” National Snow and Ice Data Center. Updated 17 Feb 2022.
Andreasen, Julia R. et al. “Change in Antarctic Ice Shelf Area from 2009 to 2019.” The Cryosphere. 16 May 2023.
Fox-Kemper, B. et al. “2021: Ocean, Cryosphere and Sea Level Change.” Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by Masson-Delmotte, V. et al. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1211–1362.
Otosaka, Inès N. et al. “Mass Balance of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets from 1992 to 2020.” Earth System Science Data. 20 Apr 2023.
“Regional fact sheet – Polar Regions.” Sixth Assessment Report: Working Group I – The Physical Science Basis. Accessed 6 Jun 2024.
Hanna, Edward et al. “Short- and Long-Term Variability of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets.” Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. 8 Feb 2024.
“The Heartland Institute.” DeSmog Climate Disinformation Database. Accessed 6 Jun 2024.
The Heartland Institute (@HeartlandInstitute). “The media claims that Antarctica is losing ice 6 or more times faster than it was a few decades ago.” YouTube. 21 May 2024.
Heartland Institute. “The media claims that Antarctica is losing ice 6 or more time faster than it was a few decades ago. But in reality, it’s barely losing ice back then or now! …” Facebook.
Greene, Chad. Email to FactCheck.org. 4 Jun 2024.
Zwally, H. Jay et al. “Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses.” Journal of Glaciology. 2015.
Petersen, Kate S. “Fact Check: NASA Antarctic Ice Sheet Data Consistent with Global Warming.” USA Today. 24 Mar 2023.
“Study: Mass gains of Antarctic ice sheet greater than losses.” NASA website. 5 Nov 2015.
Kingslake, Jonathan. Email to FactCheck.org. 29 May 2024.
“Ice Sheets.” NASA website. Accessed 6 Jun 2024.
Rice, Doyle. “Antarctic Ice Melting 6 Times Faster than It Did in ’80s.” USA Today. Updated 15 Jan 2024.
Carrington, Damian. “Polar Ice Caps Melting Six Times Faster than in 1990s.” The Guardian. 11 Mar 2020.
“Greenland, Antarctica Melting Six Times Faster Than in the 1990s.” NASA website. 16 Mar 2020.
Fricker, Helen Amanda. Correspondence with FactCheck.org. 28 May 2024.
Padman, Laurence. Correspondence with FactCheck.org. 29 May 2024 and 31 May 2024.
Ultee, Lizz. Phone call and emails with Factcheck.org. 31 May 2024, 5 Jun 2024 and 6 Jun 2024.
“Sea Level.” NASA website. Accessed 6 Jun 2024.
Hauer, Mathew E. et al. “Millions Projected to Be at Risk from Sea-Level Rise in the Continental United States.” Nature Climate Change. 14 Mar 2016.
Greene, Chad A. et al. “Antarctic Calving Loss Rivals Ice-Shelf Thinning.” Nature. 10 Aug 2022.
Americans have consistently expressed concern about increased living costs, especially after inflation peaked at a four-decade high of about 9% in summer 2022. Although the year-over-year inflation rate has eased to about 3%, it’s unsurprising that inflation came up when Time magazine interviewed President Joe Biden for a June 4 story.
In the interview transcript, Time staff said, “Cumulative inflation means prices are up nearly 20% since you took office and wage increases have not kept pace.”
Biden replied, “Wage increases have exceeded what the cost of inflation, which you’re talking about as the prices that were pre-COVID prices.”
He continued, “Pre-COVID prices are not the same as whether or not they — you have … corporate America ripping off the public now. You have everything from shrinkflation to what’s going on in terms of the way in which they’re artificially moving significantly to increase their … profits. That’s not the same as inflation. That’s price gouging.”
For this fact-check, we examined only Biden’s comment about wages and inflation.
When inflation rises faster than wages, consumers tend to dip into savings to cover everyday costs, and buy less. When wages rise faster than inflation, consumers can afford to buy and save more.
However, the wage and inflation comparisons can vary significantly depending on when you start the clock.
Using the standard measurements that compare inflation and wages, and the time frame the interviewer used — Biden’s entire presidency, which started in January 2021 — Biden is incorrect. Inflation has outpaced wages during that time period.
However, wages have outpaced inflation when compared with the past one- and two-year periods, and with their prepandemic levels — the last data available before a few years in which the pandemic’s effects wreaked havoc on economic statistics.
To check Biden’s statement, we looked at how two standard federal statistics have tracked in recent years: The consumer price index, a monthly price inflation gauge for a fixed basket of goods, and average hourly earnings for all private employees, a monthly measurement of how worker pay changes.
When we contacted the White House for comment, they pointed us to an October 2023 analysis by the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank, that compared the prepandemic 2019 fourth quarter with the 2023 second quarter, and an alternative measure calculated by a Democratic congressional committee, both of which found wages outpacing inflation.
Inflation’s swings during Biden’s presidency
Since Biden took office in January 2021, inflation has increased 19.3% while wages have risen 16.1%.
Examining other time frames after Biden took office shows that wages outpaced inflation.
In the year-over-year period from April 2023 to April 2024, wages have risen 3.9%, while inflation increased 3.4%.
It’s the same story from April 2022 to April 2024. Although inflation initially outpaced wages, wages caught up, ultimately rising 8.8% compared with inflation at 8.5%.
What we found is similar to what Time published in its fact-check of Biden’s interview. Time noted that wages topped inflation for the past 12 months, “but cumulative inflation has outpaced wage growth for most of the Biden presidency.”
Wages have outpaced inflation compared to prepandemic levels
Although Biden was not president when the pandemic began, the pandemic’s rapid and severe economic impacts affected economic statistics well into his presidency. Economists say there’s value in looking at prepandemic wage and inflation levels, because they compare the present with what existed before the upheaval.
When comparing the most recent data available, from April 2024, with February 2020, the last full month before the pandemic’s onset, consumers are better off now in terms of wages and inflation. (Of this time period, about a year was under President Donald Trump’s leadership, while a little more than three years was under Biden’s.)
Wages have risen by 21.7% since February 2020, compared with a 20.8% rise in inflation.
White House points to different metrics
The White House noted an October 2023 analysis by the Brookings Institution that found wages outpacing inflation using several different metrics from the prepandemic 2019 fourth quarter to the 2023 second quarter, mirroring what we found for a similar time frame in our prepandemic analysis.
The White House also pointed to an analysis by the Democratic staff of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee that found that per capita wages increased by nearly $15,000 from January 2021 to October 2023, compared with an increase in prices of about $11,400. It’s the only other example we found of a comparison that began in January 2021, when Biden took office.
The main difference between the standard method, which we used, and the committee’s method is the use of “consumer units” as a benchmark. The standard method counts employed individuals, while consumer units, tabulated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, include households, unmarried couples living together and individuals.
A group of experts with differing ideological backgrounds told PolitiFact that the Democratic committee’s methodology is sound, but the experts’ opinions varied on how useful the committee data is for backing up Biden’s point.
Besides using consumer units, the committee used cumulative wages generated across the economy rather than individuals’ wages. This let the committee’s method more fully capture both the rise in wages per worker and the growing number of Americans returning to employment after the pandemic, said Gary Burtless, a Brookings Institution economist.
Burtless said that since Biden’s presidency started, the number of employed Americans has increased much faster than the growth of the adult population overall.
Burtless said part-time earners — who account for about 1 of every 4 new workers during Biden’s presidency — might pull down the average wage because part-time jobs typically pay less. But many of these same part-time jobs add to the household (or “consumer unit”) income, meaning the units’ personal economies are improving. The traditional wage measurement method does not capture this, he said.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, said consumer units are typically used in studying consumer behavior, rather than wage growth. That makes it a nontraditional way of calculating whether wage increases are keeping pace with inflation and not a slam dunk proving Biden’s claim, he said.
Our ruling
Responding to an interviewer’s question about cumulative inflation since he took office, Biden said wage increases have exceeded the cost of inflation.
When looking at the duration of Biden’s presidency, as his interviewer did, and using the standard methodology, inflation has increased by 19.3% since January 2021 while wages have risen by 16.1%.
When using the standard measures and considering other time periods, wages have outpaced inflation during three other time periods: compared with a year ago, compared with two years ago and compared with the month before the pandemic, the last time economic statistics remained unaffected by the economic changes that the pandemic wrought. In his comments, Biden pointed to prepandemic economic conditions.
An alternative measure calculated by a Democratic congressional committee, considered credible by economists, found per capita wage increases outpacing inflation from January 2021 to October 2023.
The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True.
Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.
Quick Take
A photo taken in January shows a large tunnel under Gaza’s northern border with Israel, reportedly used in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. But recent social media posts falsely claim that the photo shows a tunnel connecting Egypt with the southern Gaza city of Rafah — where Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war have been sheltering.
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More than a million people fleeing the Israel-Hamas war had been sheltering in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah when, on May 26, the Israeli military struck a refugee encampment, killing at least 45 — most of whom were women and children — according to the Gaza health ministry.
That strike, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “tragic mishap,” and worsening conditions in Rafah have kept the area in the news. Now, it is the target of misinformation.
Israel closed the border with Egypt on May 7, shutting off a major route for humanitarian aid and depriving people there of food and medicine. On May 24, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ordered Israel to end military operations in Rafah and open the border, which Israel has not done.
A photo taken on Jan. 7 shows the inside of a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used on Oct. 7 to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing in Northern Gaza. Photo by Noam Galai via Getty Images.
Now, posts are circulating on social media that claim to show a picture of “One of 50 Tunnels the size of motorways Israel has discovered connecting Rafah to Egypt.”
Social media users are responding to the posts with messages that indicate the tunnel justifies Israel’s actions in Rafah. For example, one user wrote, “No wonder they resisted Israel’s invasion of Rafa! They all new what was under cover there! Go for it Israel, consume anything along your path to victory!”
But the picture actually shows a tunnel that was photographed in January on the opposite end of the Gaza Strip at the Erez border crossing into Israel.
The caption accompanying the original photo, as shown on the Getty Images website, says: “A view inside a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used on October 7th to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing on January 07, 2024 in Northern Gaza. As the IDF have pressed into Gaza as part of their campaign to defeat Hamas, they have highlighted the militant group’s extensive tunnel network as emblematic of the way the group embeds itself and its military activity in civilian areas.”
The Israeli military said it has found multiple tunnels on the southern end of Gaza, which borders Egypt. That corridor “served as the oxygen line of Hamas through which Hamas carried out weapons smuggling into Gaza on a regular basis,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military chief spokesperson, said in May.
But the photo circulating in these social media posts does not show one of those tunnels.
Sources
United Nations. “Conditions in Gaza are ‘unspeakable’ as one million people flee Rafah: UNRWA.” 3 Jun 2024.
Mackintosh, Thomas and David Gritten. “Dozens reported killed in Israeli strike on Rafah.” BBC. 27 May 2024.
Goldenberg, Tia, Melanie Lidman and Samy Magdy. “Netanyahu says deadly Israeli strike in Rafah was the result of a ‘tragic mishap.’” Associated Press. 28 May 2024.
United Nations. “World court orders Israel to halt military operations in Rafah.” 27 May 2024.
International Court of Justice. Order. APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP. 24 May 2024.
Galai, Noam. “Israeli Forces Highlight Alleged Hamas Infrastructure In Northern Gaza.” Getty Images. 7 Jan 2024.
PBS. “Israel seizes control of strategic Gaza land border, claims area is awash in smuggling tunnels.” 30 May 2024.
When Republican lawmakers on May 31 released a transcript from two days of closed-door interviews with the nation’s best-known infectious diseases expert, a portion of the transcript inspired a splashy headline.
“REVEALED: Dr. Anthony Fauci confesses he ‘made up’ covid rules including 6 feet social distancing and masking kids,” read a June 2 headline in the Daily Mail, a British publication.
“Bombshell testimony from Dr. Anthony Fauci reveals he made up the six foot social distancing rule and other measures to ‘protect’ Americans from covid,” the article’s first paragraph read.
Screenshots of the Daily Mail headline soon went viral on social media and were shared by prominent conservatives, such as Charlie Kirk.
But the headline distorted what the transcript shows Fauci, formerly the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director and chief White House medical adviser, told members of the House Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in the January meeting.
When Republicans on the subcommittee released a memo along with the transcript, they highlighted comments Fauci made about social distancing and masking children, but they did not say Fauci said he “made up” any rules.
What Fauci said about 6-foot social distancing
Starting on Page 183 of a 246-page transcript of Fauci’s second day of testimony, he said he was not aware of studies that supported the 6-foot social distancing guidelines that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instituted early in the pandemic.
Committee Staff Director Mitch Benzine asked Fauci whether he recalled when discussions about a 6-foot threshold began.
“You know,” Fauci replied, “I don’t recall. It sort of just appeared. I don’t recall, like, a discussion of whether it should be 5 or 6 or whatever. It was just that 6-foot is — “
“Did you see any studies that supported 6 feet?” Benzine asked.
“I was not aware of studies that — in fact, that would be a very difficult study to do,” Fauci said.
After some back and forth, Fauci said the decision was “empiric,” which in medical terms means a determination based on experience rather than a precise understanding of the cause of something.
“I think it would fall under the category of empiric,” Fauci said. “Just an empiric decision that wasn’t based on data or even data that could be accomplished. But I’m thinking hard as I’m talking to you. … I don’t recall, like, a discussion of, ‘Now, it’s going to be’ — it sort of just appeared, that 6 feet is going to be the distance.”
What Fauci said about masking
Earlier in the hearing, Benzine and Fauci discussed masking for children. Starting on Page 135, the transcript shows Fauci did not say he “made up” masking rules, but that he didn’t recall specific studies supporting masking for children. Fauci emphasized the role of another agency — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — in making the masking guidelines. He also noted there were conflicting studies about masking’s negative effects on children.
Here are two exchanges on the topic:
Benzine noted that the World Health Organization recommended against masking children and asked Fauci whether there was a “cost-benefit analysis done on the unintended consequences of masking kids versus the protection that it would give them?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Fauci said.
Benzine then asked Fauci whether he felt masking children as young as 2 was necessary.
“I think it’s context-dependent,” Fauci responded. “It really depends on where you are. I think you were having a time like when you’re having a tsunami of infections and you’re desperately trying to protect people from getting infected and dying to the point where every one of our healthcare facilities are in danger of overrunning, you might want to do something that might seem -— what’s the right word? — excessive, whereas under most other circumstances, you won’t. And I believe the CDC felt at that time that that’s what was needed given the dire — I would say, the dire situation that we were in.”
Later in the exchange, Benzine also asked Fauci whether he recalled reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children.
“You know, I might have, Mitch,” Fauci answered, “but I don’t recall specifically that I did. I might have.”
Benzine asked Fauci whether he followed any studies about masking and negative effects on children, such as on speech and learning loss.
“No,” Fauci responded. “But I believe that there are a lot of conflicting studies, too, that there are those that say, ’Yes, there is an impact,’ and there are those that say there’s not. I still think that’s up in the air. I mean, I’m very sensitive to children. I have children and I have grandchildren. So, I don’t want to have anything that would do to harm them. But I think that there was a conflicting discussion about the negative impact on speech and formation of the bones of the face and that, I think, was debunked pretty easily.”
What Fauci said in his live testimony
Three days after the committee released Fauci’s transcript, Fauci appeared before the subcommittee and testified publicly, as had been planned before the transcript’s release. During the hearing, Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., accused Republicans of sitting on the transcript for months and mischaracterizing some of Fauci’s statements. She asked whether he wanted to clear anything up publicly.
“One I’m sure is going to come up later is the issue of the 6-foot distance,” Fauci answered. “And I made the statement that it just appeared and that got taken like I don’t know what’s going on, it just appeared. It actually came from the CDC. The CDC was responsible for those kinds of guidelines for schools, not me.”
He also clarified what he meant when he said he had not seen any studies that support the guideline.
“What I meant by no science behind it, is that there wasn’t a controlled trial that said compare 6 foot with 3 feet with 10 feet,” he said.
He said he thought the CDC used past studies about the spread of droplets to make that decision, before health officials realized the virus was spread through the air.
Rep. John Joyce, R-Pa., pressed Fauci about why he didn’t challenge the CDC on the 6-foot guideline when it was clear the virus was aerosolized (meaning tiny virus particles that can get suspended in the air). Fauci said it was the CDC’s decision to make and that it wasn’t appropriate to publicly challenge a sister health organization.
At one point in the hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R.-Ga., held up an enlarged copy of the Daily Mail headline and said, “Mr. Fauci, you also represent the type of science where you confessed that you made up the COVID rules, including 6-feet social distancing and masking of children.”
“I never said I made anything up,” Fauci said.
“You admitted that you made up, that you made it up as you went,” Greene said.
“I didn’t say I made it up,” Fauci said.
“So, are you saying this is fake news, Mr. Fauci?” Greene asked.
“I didn’t say I made anything up,” Fauci said.
“What did you say?” Greene asked.
“I said that it is not based in science and it just appeared,” Fauci said.
A CDC spokesperson told PolitiFact that the 6-foot recommendation was based in part on 1955 research examining how respiratory droplets travel. That research was used because there was no other data for COVID-19, the spokesperson said. The guidance was updated Aug. 11, 2022, to no longer recommend 6-foot distancing because of widespread immunity and effective treatments, the spokesperson said.
The revelation about the 6-foot rule is not new. Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director in former President Donald Trump’s administration testified before a House panel March 17, 2022, about early mitigation efforts.
“There was no magic around 6 feet. It’s just historically that’s what was used for other respiratory pathogens,” Redfield said. “So, that really became the first piece.”
Fauci’s live hearing also touched on mask mandates for children. Rep. Mike Cloud, R-Texas, asked whether there was scientific evidence supporting that guideline.
“There was no study that did masks on kids before,” Fauci said. “You couldn’t do the study. You had to respond to an epidemic that was killing 4(,000) to 5,000 Americans per day.”
PolitiFact Staff Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
Former President Donald Trump, who has promised to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history if reelected, says an enormous number of immigrants entering the country illegally are people with mental illnesses or criminal records.
President Joe Biden “is letting millions of people from jails, from prisons, from insane asylums, from mental institutions, drug dealers pour in,” Trump told reporters May 29 in Manhattan during his falsified business records trial. “Venezuela, if you look at their crime statistics, they’ve gone down 72% in crime because they’re releasing all their criminals into our country because of this horrible president that we have.”
We fact-checked a similar statement by Trump about Venezuela and rated it False. Here, we will examine Trump’s statement that “millions” of immigrants are pouring in from jails and mental institutions — a frequent Trump talking point that reporters have examined and debunked before.
Some migrants have criminal records, but we found no evidence that they add up to millions.
Federal data shows some immigrants have criminal records
U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows that from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2024, immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions whether in the U.S. or abroad, so long as the conviction was for conduct deemed criminal by the U.S.
Some key points about this number:
Includes people stopped at and between ports of entry.
Not everyone stopped was let in.
The term “noncitizens” includes people who may have legal immigration status in the U.S., but are not U.S. citizens.
Fiscal year 2021 includes about four months of Trump’s administration; the data for fiscal year 2024 is incomplete. (The federal fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.)
The data reflects the numbers the federal government knows about, but it’s inexhaustive.
“A pro-Trump responder would say (correctly) that countries like Venezuela or Cuba don’t share their criminal databases with the US, and other countries’ justice systems are in general disarray anyway (Haiti, Honduras etc.),” border security expert Adam Isacson wrote in an email to PolitiFact.
But Trump’s “millions” statement is “laughable,” said Isacson, defense oversight director at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy organization.
Including repeat crossers, there’ve been around 8 million encounters at the border since Biden took office, Isacson said.
For reference, encounters data represents events, not people. For example, if one person tries to cross the border three times and is stopped each time, that would be counted as three encounters. This data also doesn’t tell us how many people stayed in the U.S.
“‘Millions’ would mean one in eight was someone released from a jail or a mental institution, a claim too ridiculous to dignify,” Isacson said.
It also “strains belief,” he said, that someone with serious mental illness could navigate the route to the U.S. after release from an institution.
Mike LaSusa, deputy content director for InSight Crime, a think tank focused on crime and security in the Americas, said that because the U.S. government doesn’t stop everyone who crosses, it’s impossible to know exactly how many criminals may have entered.
However, LaSusa said, the claim of ‘millions’ coming from prisons seemed mathematically and logically unlikely. “The trend in recent years has generally been toward locking more people up, not letting them out so they can emigrate,” he said.
The federal government’s data showed Border Patrol apprehended 2,033 gang members nationwide from fiscal years 2021 to 2024. The El Paso Times reported that the Tren de Aragua gang, which originated in Venezuelan prisons, “has been detected in the El Paso-Juárez borderlands among the continuing arrival of thousands of migrants seeking political asylum.” The article did not say how many were “detected.” CBP data shows that border officials have apprehended 47 Tren de Aragua gang members during Biden’s presidency.
Under Biden, the U.S. has expelled, removed or returned people out of the U.S. around 3.8 million times, according to PolitiFact’s March analysis of Department of Homeland Security data.
In September 2021, DHS released a memo instructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize removing people who have crossed the border in recent years or who threaten public safety. Courts halted those guidelines in 2021, but they were reinstated in 2023 after a Supreme Court decision. Biden on June 4 announced a new order to limit the number of migrants seeking asylum at the border.
Why it’s questionable that millions of immigrants came from “insane asylums” or mental institutions
Pierluigi Mancini, an Atlanta-based expert on immigrant behavioral health, also told PolitiFact that Trump’s statement about emptying facilities of people with mental illness who are coming to the U.S. “does not make sense because those numbers are not there.”
Many people in Latin American countries face barriers to getting mental health treatment, Mancini said, and “if there are mentally ill persons flooding the United States, they are not coming from psychiatric hospitals.”
Often, people pay smugglers thousands of dollars to help them get into the U.S. Also, immigrants usually must wait in Guatemala or Mexico before they try to cross into the U.S. And then they need the physical fortitude to make the journey “something that someone with a serious mental illness may be unable to,” Mancini said.
Trump campaign has pointed to news articles that don’t support his statement
We asked the Trump campaign for its evidence and received no reply. But in 2023, the campaign pointed CNN to an article a Border Patrol veteran wrote for Breitbart, a conservative news website. The article was based on information from an unnamed source at Customs and Border Protection and a Homeland Security intelligence report (we did not see the report and PolitiFact does not rely on anonymous information). The article said the report found the Venezuelan government was freeing inmates, including those convicted of rape and murder, and that they were seen traveling to the border, but included no specific numbers.
The Trump campaign also cited to CNN a 1983 Washington Post article about criminals who came from Cuba via the Mariel boatlift. The article said that Cuba’s then-leader Fidel Castro put inmates and people with mental illness on the boats and that 22,000 arrivals admitted that they were convicts.
But reporters who were based in South Florida then later said that the claims were inflated. Academics and U.S. federal government researchers agreed. And Trump’s statement wasn’t about historical migration.
Our ruling
Trump said Biden “is letting millions of people from jails, from prisons, from insane asylums, from mental institutions, drug dealers pour in.”
The Trump campaign provided no evidence to support this claim to PolitiFact, and news articles the campaign has previously cited don’t prove that millions of such immigrants are coming into the U.S.
Are there some immigrants with criminal records who try getting into the U.S.? Yes. But Trump’s statement about “millions” is a gross exaggeration.
We rate this statement Pants on Fire!
RELATED: Fact-checking claim about Venezuela sending prisoners to the US southern border
RELATED: Donald Trump exaggerates Venezuelan crime drop and misleads on root causes
RELATED: The context behind Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s dueling immigration speeches at the Texas border
Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.
President Joe Biden punctuated a campaign speech in Philadelphia with the phrase “a promise made and a promise kept,” when chronicling several actions his administration has taken. But in a few cases, he hasn’t kept the promise or he misleadingly described his accomplishments.
Biden said the wealth gap between white and Black Americans is “the lowest it’s been in 20 years,” and he took credit. A 2023 paper from Federal Reserve Board staffers does show that the wealth ratio between white and Black families in 2022 was the smallest in 20 years, but the gap in raw dollars was the widest it had been since 1989.
Biden exaggerated in saying he was “keeping my promises that no one should be in jail merely for using or possessing marijuana.” He has issued pardons, but only retroactively and for people convicted under federal or D.C. laws. It’s unclear if anyone has been released from jail.
The president said he has kept his promise to “remove every lead pipe in America.” But that’s a “goal,” as the administration has said, that he has started to address. It’s not a “promise kept,” as Biden described it.
Biden rightly said he capped the cost of insulin and out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare. But he inaccurately added that the provisions will save Medicare $160 billion. Instead, they will increase costs.
As we typically see in campaign speeches, the president repeated claims we’ve written about before — on billionaires’ tax rates, former President Donald Trump’s comments on “bleach” and COVID-19, and Biden’s unsupported claim that Trump “is determined to cut Social Security and Medicare.”
Biden spoke in Philadelphia on May 29. Pennsylvania, a swing state, was won by Biden in 2020 and by Trump in 2016.
The White-Black Wealth Gap
Biden said he reduced the gap in wealth between white and Black Americans.
“The racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years because of our efforts,” Biden said, repeating a claim that he has made before. “A promise made and a promise kept.”
Biden was accurately referring to the ratio of median Black wealth compared with median white wealth, based on data in a research paper published in October 2023 by Federal Reserve Board staffers. The report shows that in 2022, Black families had $15.75 in wealth for every $100 in wealth for white families — the smallest gap since 2001, when the ratio was roughly the same. (The paper defines wealth as assets minus liabilities.)
However, by an alternative measure, in absolute or raw dollars, Black families had a median wealth of $44,890, and for white families the median was $285,010. The difference of $240,120 was the largest gap in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1989, which is as far back as the report’s data go. The wealth gap in absolute dollars widened in 2022 despite Black wealth growing at a faster rate than white wealth, the report said.
So, one measure supports Biden’s claim and the other does not.
In an email, Moritz Kuhn, a professor of economics at the University of Mannheim in Germany, told us that “in general, there is no right or wrong measure of inequality or the racial wealth gap.” Although, economists tend to prefer using the relative, or ratio, measurement when making comparisons over time, he said.
As for why Black wealth increased in 2022, the authors of the report said that the biggest factor was growth in net housing wealth, or “the market value of a family’s home minus any outstanding loans secured by the home.” Business equity was the second largest factor, followed by a rise in “other wealth” and stocks. The paper noted that more Black families owned homes, stocks and businesses in 2022 than in some prior years.
Pardons for Federal Marijuana Offenses
Biden has issued two proclamations pardoning people convicted of federal simple marijuana possession and use charges, as well as charges in Washington, D.C. But he exaggerated the impact of his actions when claiming that he was “keeping my promises that no one should be in jail” for such offenses. The pardons apply only to federal and D.C. offenses committed on or before Dec. 22, 2023 — not offenses after that date — and it’s unclear if anyone has or will be released from prison.
“I’m keeping my promises that no one should be in jail merely for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said. “I pardoned thousands of people incarcerated for the mere possession of marijuana — thousands. A promise made and a promise kept. And for — their records should be expunged as well, I might add.”
Biden’s Oct. 6, 2022, proclamation grants “a full, complete, and unconditional pardon” to people who were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents at the time they committed or were convicted of simple possession of marijuana in violation of either the federal Controlled Substances Act or D.C. Code 48–904.01(d)(1). The Justice Department explains that the pardon pertains to offenses committed on or before the date of the proclamation.
On Dec. 22, 2023, Biden issued a second proclamation to cover offenses committed up to that date, and expanded the eligible offenses beyond simple possession to include attempted possession and use.
The DOJ says that these pardons lift “barriers to housing, employment, and educational opportunities for thousands of people with those prior offenses.” But, as we explained in 2022, when Biden similarly exaggerated the scope of his first proclamation, the pardons don’t do anything for people convicted on state or local charges, and it’s unclear if anyone would be released from jail as a result of the pardons.
In October 2022, a senior administration official told reporters that “there are no individuals currently in federal prison solely for simple possession of marijuana.”
Simple possession of marijuana is a federal misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a minimum fine of $1,000 for a first-time offender. The penalties increase for repeat offenders. A January 2023 report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission said that 70% of federal marijuana possession offenders were sentenced to prison from fiscal year 2017 to 2021, with an average prison time of five months.
The report also said that nearly 60% of all offenders weren’t U.S. citizens. Biden’s pardons apply to citizens and legal permanent residents only.
In the December proclamation, Biden said he encouraged “Governors to do the same with regard to state offenses and applaud those who have since taken action.”
As of May 2, 24 states and Washington, D.C., as well as Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands have legalized recreational use of small amounts of marijuana, and more allow for medicinal use, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
Biden also exaggerated in saying that he “pardoned thousands of people” jailed for marijuana possession. Thousands of people are eligible for these federal pardons — in October 2022, the administration said more than 6,500 people with prior federal convictions and thousands with D.C. convictions could benefit — but they have to submit an application to get one. So far, 208 certificates of pardon have been issued, according to the DOJ webpage, last updated on June 3.
In his remarks in Philadelphia, Biden said that offenders’ “records should be expunged,” meaning the offense would be removed from the person’s permanent record. That’s something he promised for prior convictions on the campaign trail in 2020. But the pardons issued under his proclamations don’t expunge a conviction. In fact, the Justice Department says a president can’t grant expungement. Instead, it is up to the court, and it “is rarely granted.”
Lead Pipe Removal
The president said he has kept his promise to “remove every lead pipe in America.” But that’s a “goal,” as the administration has said — not what Biden described in Philadelphia as a “promise kept.”
Biden, May 29: Look, I said I’d remove every lead pipe in America so every child can drink clean water without fear of brain damage. We’re doing it. A promise made and a promise kept.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which the Biden administration refers to as the bipartisan infrastructure law, is one of Biden’s signature accomplishments. It includes $15 billion in direct funding for lead pipe replacement. So far, the $9 billion in funding announced to date is “expected to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes nationwide,” the Environmental Protection Agency said in a May 2 press release.
However, the EPA estimates that there are 9 million lead service lines in the United States, according to the agency’s Updated 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey & Assessment issued last month. As we’ve written before, the EPA estimated the average cost for full lead service line replacement at $4,700 per line. Using that estimate, it would cost more than $42 billion to replace 9 million lead pipes.
State, local and tribal governments can use other federal grant, loan and loan guarantee programs to replace lead service lines, such as community block grants and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which was created under the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1996, the EPA says on its website. But whether the Biden administration will “remove every lead pipe in America” is not yet a promise kept.
Medicare Savings
During the 2020 campaign, Biden promised to reduce prescription drug costs, including proposing to cap out-of-pocket drug expenses for Medicare beneficiaries, allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices and require Medicare to “target excessively priced prescription drugs that face little or no competition.”
In his Philadelphia speech, Biden said that he kept his promise to reduce prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare.
“Seniors with diabetes are now paying $35 [a month] for insulin instead of $400,” Biden said. “We capped total out-of-pocket costs for drugs for seniors beginning next year at $2,000 a year total, including cancer drugs that cost $10-, $12-, $14,000 a year. You pay no more than $2,000 a year. A promise made and a promise kept.”
But he went too far when he repeated his claim that reducing insulin costs and out-of-pocket expenses will save Medicare $160 billion.
“And, by the way,” Biden added, “it not only saves people money, it saves the taxpayers — guess what? — $160 billion cut in the def- — because Medicare doesn’t have to pay those exorbitant prices.”
It’s actually the opposite. Those two provisions, which are part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, will increase Medicare spending.
As we have written before, the insulin cap will cost $5.1 billion over 10 years, while the limit on out-of-pocket expenses for seniors with Medicare Part D prescription coverage will increase spending by $30 billion over the 2022-2031 period, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Overall, the Medicare provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act are expected to reduce the deficit by $237 billion over 10 years, according to CBO. That includes prescription drug negotiation provisions that would save Medicare $98.5 billion over 10 years. There’s also a projected $63.2 billion in savings by requiring rebates from drug companies if their prices increase faster than inflation. Those two provisions total about $160 billion — which is the figure used by Biden.
But most of the savings haven’t happened yet.
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Kyle Rittenhouse’s mother did not drop her son off “in the middle of a riot armed with an assault rifle,” as social media posts once claimed.
We rated that claim False in 2021, during Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial in the 2020 shooting deaths of two people at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest.
Rittenhouse, who was 17 when the shooting happened, said he fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, in self-defense; a third person was injured. Rittenhouse was acquitted of criminal charges in the shootings, though he still faces civil litigation.
Meanwhile, more misinformation about his mother, Wendy Rittenhouse, has populated social media platforms.
“Kyle Rittenhouse’s mom is 38. 38,” one June 2 Threads post said, sharing a photo of Wendy Rittenhouse.
This 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.)
This post’s photo is from 2021, during a period when Wendy Rittenhouse spoke publicly in support of her son. But, even then, Wendy Rittenhouse wasn’t 38.
Public records reflect that she’s 49, born in November 1974.
We rate claims that she’s 38 False.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
X owner and entrepreneur Elon Musk and “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg are perennial stars of online misinformation, and sometimes they appear in claims together.
In May, we debunked a claim that Musk had fired Goldberg and her “View” colleagues after “acquiring ABC.”
Now, a Facebook post says Musk sued “The View” and Goldberg for $60 million, claiming”they are lying about him.”
This 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.)
We searched for credible evidence such as new stories or legal filings to corroborate this claim and found none. Rather, we discovered it was poached from a self-described satire site.
About a year ago, a blog called SpaceXMania posted about the supposed lawsuit in a story labeled “satire.”
Former President Donald Trump’s recent conviction on felony charges raised a host of other questions.
Can Trump still run for president? Yes, he can. Can he vote in Florida? It’s likely.
But the answer to another question isn’t as clear: How will Trump’s felony conviction affect his ability to travel internationally? Social media users claimed there were dozens of countries that Trump can no longer enter because of his conviction.
Many countries have rules barring people convicted of felonies from entering. However, those rules vary widely and many leave room for exemptions. If Trump is again elected president and visits a country on official business, he would likely be granted entry, but it’s not guaranteed, experts said.
A Manhattan jury on May 30 found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in an alleged scheme to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced July 11. Judge Juan Merchan has the power to impose travel restrictions at that time, limiting Trump’s travel outside the U.S.
Countries have discretion about when and how to admit foreigners
Many countries singled out in the social media posts about Trump limit entry for foreigners who have been convicted of felonies. Factors considered in whether to grant entry include the type of crime, when it occurred and the sentence length.
For example, Australia’s visitor travel requirements stipulate that “you must not have any criminal convictions for which the sentences total 12 months or more, whether or not you have served the sentences.” Because Trump hasn’t been sentenced, it’s unclear whether whatever sentence he receives would fall into this category. Many legal experts have said they doubt Trump will be sentenced to prison.
Israel and the United Kingdom also can bar people convicted of felonies from visiting. The U.K. restrictions factor in the sentence length and conviction timing.
It’s unclear whether Trump’s felony conviction will affect his ability to travel to Trump International Golf Links in Scotland, which is part of the United Kingdom. When asked about how a potential visit from Trump may be handled, the U.K.’s Home Office said it does not comment on individual cases.
Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale University international law professor, said Trump’s travel to other countries as a former, and potentially future, head of state “would depend on how that country chooses to administer its entry laws.”
Even sitting heads of state, he said, don’t have “an affirmative right that entitles” them to enter a country, although Trump would have diplomatic immunity in other countries if he’s reelected.
“China, where President Xi Jinping has broad executive authority, could decide to admit him between now and November as a former U.S. president who also could be a future U.S. president,” Koh said. “But that would be based on a discretionary act of the Chinese executive under Chinese law, not on any general rule of international law.”
Evelyn Cruz, an Arizona State University law professor who directs the university’s immigration clinic, said all countries have admission rules and it’s possible Trump might need a waiver for any country he seeks to visit.
“Whether he needs to apply ahead or at the entry point will depend on the country’s policies,” Cruz said. If Trump were to be reelected in November, “he would be traveling under the head of state diplomatic immunity, and therefore, the countries would let him in.”
She noted the U.S. has a similar diplomatic policy and has let in people accused or convicted of war crimes to attend United Nations gatherings.
Diplomatic immunity holds that certain government officials are not subject to jurisdiction of local courts and other authorities for their official duties, a 2018 U.S. State Department guide said. In the U.S., a head of state automatically qualifies for an A1 visa, regardless of the visit’s purpose.
Similar travel questions arose when former President George W. Bush ran for president in 2000. One news report said he was granted special permission to enter Canada because he acknowledged a 1976 misdemeanor DUI charge, for which he had pleaded guilty and paid a fine. A Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson told PolitiFact the agency doesn’t comment on individual cases.
To examine the travel challenges Trump might face, we also examined how the U.S.’ northern and southern neighbors handle convicted felons entering their countries.
Canada’s rules about admission for people convicted of felonies
Under Canadian law, a visitor with a criminal conviction can be barred from entering the country, a U.S. State Department webpage said.
Mario Bellissimo, a Canadian immigration lawyer, said Trump could be denied entry because of his conviction.
“He is inadmissible to Canada and would be eligible (to apply for a certificate of) rehabilitation five years after the completion of any sentence,” Bellissimo said.
For certificates of rehabilitation, an immigration officer decides if a foreign national poses a risk of reoffending, taking into account factors related to the crime and what the offender has done since to show he or she is not a risk, Bellissimo said.
However, there are exceptions to these procedures, Bellissimo said. Section 24 of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act affords immigration officers the leeway to grant a temporary resident permit.
“Someone like a former president or a Republican (presidential) nominee that might be coming here for official duties or official business, that would be a very strong factor that would weigh in his favor for entry to Canada,” he said.
Luke Reimer, a Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson, said admission to Canada is decided case by case based on the information available at the time of entry about whether travelers meet entry requirements.
He said several factors determine whether a person can enter, including criminal history.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act lists multiple reasons a person can be found inadmissible to Canada, including being convicted outside Canada of a crime that would be an indictable offense in Canada. Trump’s conviction on falsifying business records is also a crime in Canada.
Mexico’s rules about admitting people convicted of felonies
Mexican law also allows immigration authorities to deny foreigners entry if they were charged with or convicted of a serious crime in Mexico or elsewhere, the U.S. State Department said on its website.
A frequently asked questions page from the Mexican Consulate in Miami about forms visitors to Mexico must fill out notes that a person with a criminal record could be denied entry for serious crimes.
“There is no way to know about your case before you travel,” the page said, recommending that travelers contact authorities in their own country to find out if they have shared information with other countries.
An Embassy of Mexico in Canada webpage about visiting Mexico with a criminal record says people could be denied entry for serious crimes. The crimes listed include “tax fraud and comparable crimes.”
PolitiFact Staff Researcher Caryn Baird, Staff Writers Loreben Tuquero, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu and Sara Swann and Contributing Writer Sofia Ahmed contributed to this report.
