Fact check: Trump’s own campaign can’t find proof for his ‘mental institutions’ immigration story

Official White House Photo

Donald Trump is running for President.  Here is his 2024 campaign website’s immigration issue page.  As the campaign continues, expect regular statements about immigrants and the immigration “crisis.”  Recall his administration’s words on deeds on immigration.

CNN reports that Trump’s recent statements about immigration cannot be verified:  

“On at least three occasions over the last two months, former President Donald Trump has claimed that the leaders of unnamed South American countries are deliberately emptying their `insane asylums’ and `mental institutions’ to send the patients to the United States as migrants.

In each version of the dramatic story, Trump has claimed he recently read about a doctor at a South American mental institution who said he used to be busy but now has no work to do because all of his patients have been released into the US.”

Click the link above for further details about the stories told by President Trump.

CNN further reports that:

“Trump’s campaign was unable to provide any evidence of the existence of a news story about a no-longer-busy doctor at a South American mental institution – and the campaign also failed to provide any evidence that South American countries are emptying mental health facilities to somehow send patients into the US. Representatives for two anti-immigration organizations told us they had not heard of anything that would corroborate any of Trump’s story, as did three experts at organizations favorable toward immigration. CNN’s own search did not produce any evidence. The website FactCheck.org also found nothing.”  (italics in original).

KJ