During the Monday, September 30, White House Press Briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre (KJP) tried to fact-check Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Peter Doocy when he pressed her on the number of illegal immigrants who are convicted of murder but crossed into America regardless. However, he countered her attempted fact-check by noting that it was false.
As background, according to a recently released ICE report that has not been shown to be false, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds are living in America. 13,000 of them are convicted of murder, 15,000 are convicted of sexual assault, 56,000 have drug convictions, 62,000 have assault convictions, 18,000 have larceny convictions, 14,000 have burglary convictions, 13,000 have weapon offense convictions, and 2,500 have kidnapping convictions. Despite those convictions, they are not detained by ICE.
So, Mr. Doocy pressed KJP on the matter during the September 30 White House Press Briefing, asking, “Thank you, Karine. Thirteen thousand people who have been convicted of murder crossed the border illegally and are living among us. So, how much danger are U.S. communities in right now because of this?”
KJP asked, as if buying for time before giving a misleading answer, “I’m assuming you’re talking about the ICE data?” Doocy told her, “Yes,” at which point she acted as if the report was wrong and needed to be fixed, saying that it was time for her to “correct the record” about the ICE report showing the massive number of illegal immigrants with criminal convictions living undetained in America.
Beginning, she said, “So, just a couple of things, and I think it’s important to — to correct the record here.” Continuing, she insisted that the ICE data somehow showed a “false representation” of the facts, saying, “First of all, the false — the — the false representation of the data ICE shared — so, that was what we are seeing: false representation.”
She then said that she had to say as much, telling Doocy, “I got to call that out. We got to call that out.” Building on that, she insisted that the report had been “fact-checked” though she didn’t say what was found to be incorrect about it. She said, “And it’s been fact-checked by some of your colleagues here, by multiple — multiple — multiple outlets.”
She next, continuing on much the same track, said that the report had been “debunked” for having “misrepresented” what is going on with the criminal illegal immigrants here in America. She said, “That has been debunked on what has been falsely misrepresenta- — or mis- — misrepresented here. So, we have to call that out.”
Still going, she started saying, “And so, look, this is” at which point Mr. Doocy cut her off and funnily fact-checked her fact-check, asking what the supposed “misrepresentation” of the situation had been in the ICE report. He asked, obviously not buying it, “Can you clarify what the misrepresentation is?”
KJP then rambled about removals, without addressing the crime aspect or who remains, saying, “The numbers that is being put out about how many people are out is been falsely rep- — represented here. If you look at the total returns and removal of the past year, that has been higher than every year under the previous administrations since — since 2010. If you look at it.”
Concluding, further rambling without actually addressing the matter at hand, she said, “And if we’re going to report something — a data that’s out there — we got to do it in a way that is not — not confusing the American people and certainly not lying. And so, there has been — this has been fact-checked — been fact-checked. And so, this is — the way that is being fals- — falsely represented here is just not okay. And though — got to be really clear about that.” Watch her here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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