AP fact check: Trump spins fiction about diversity visas

Politics Feb 18, 2019 9:39 AM EST

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is going after the “horror show” known as the diversity visa lottery program. His description of it is pure fiction.

The president offered a multitude of fabrications and partial truths over the past week on the subject of immigration — both the legal and illegal varieties — as he declared a national emergency aimed at finding the money to build his border wall. He said drugs are flowing across the hinterlands from Mexico, not from border crossings, and suggested that the federal prison population is laden with hardened criminals who are in the U.S. illegally. Neither claim is substantiated.

Along the way, the president took unearned credit for developments in the auto industry, health care for veterans and trade with China.

A look at the rhetoric and the reality:

DIVERSITY VISAS

TRUMP: “And then you have the lottery. It’s a horror show, because when countries put people into the lottery, they’re not putting you in; they’re putting some very bad people in the lottery. It’s common sense. If I ran a country, and if I have a lottery system of people going to the United States, I’m not going to put in my stars; I’m going to put in people I don’t want.” — Rose Garden remarks Friday.

THE FACTS: That’s completely false. He says this often anyway.

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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-trump-spins-fiction-about-diversity-visas