Thread by @ReichlinMelnick

This attempted "fact-check" from the Heritage Foundation's new post-Trump DHS "senior fellows" (Wolf, Morgan, Ries) is not only disingenuous, it also gets a number of facts wrong. So I'm going to fact-check the fact-check. Come with me on a thread.

dailysignal.com/2021/05/03/fac…

First, Chad Wolf makes an unprovable claim about motivations behind increased border apprehensions. Here's why it's wrong:

1) Apprehensions began spiking in May 2020, not "the last months" of Trump.
2) In the the actual "last months" after Biden won, apprehensions leveled off!

Chad Wolf's claim of a "border under control" pre-Biden is particularly disingenuous.

Note how he points to April 2020 as proof, ignoring that half the world was on lockdown and that single adult apprehensions—fully 2/3 of all apprehensions under Biden—began spiking in May 2020!

Next, Chad Wolf claims reduced border apprehensions in 2019-2020 were due to three things:

- The Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP/Remain in Mexico)
- Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs/Safe Third Country agreements)
- "More construction of the border wall."

I'll address each.

Wolf says that "every single one of these effective policies was still in place on January 20, 2021." That's a half-truth at best, a lie at worst.

The only ACA ever to go into effect was suspended in March 2020 due to COVID. When Biden ended the ACAs they existed on paper only.

Similarly, Wolf's claim that MPP was still in place on January 20, 2021 is true, but also deeply deceptive.

MPP was effectively replaced by Title 42. Just 1.19% of people encountered from April 2020 to January 2021 were put into MPP—hardly the major deterrent Wolf is claiming.

Wolf's description of MPP is also very deceptive. MPP didn't end "fraudulent" asylum claims, it ended nearly ALL asylum claims through a system of kangaroo courts.

Less than 1% of people put into MPP ever won protection—compared to 13-18% for Central Americans inside the US.

Wolf is equally disingenuous when describing the ACAs. What the ACAs did was give the US the ability to deport people to a third country and force them to apply for asylum there—even if they'd never been there.

For example, the U.S.-Honduras ACA would have applied to Mexicans!

Chad Wolf also claims that "more construction of the border wall" was a cause of a decrease in apprehensions in 2019, and blames Biden's construction pause on skyrocketing numbers.

But that makes no sense. All that wall which supposedly decreased apprehensions is still there!

Wolf's segment ends by saying that "Biden inherited the most secure border in U.S. history, and promptly blew it apart."

So how does he get there? Pretending the 2020 border spike in single adults didn't happen, misrepresenting what Biden did, and making nonsensical arguments.

What's also notable about Wolf's segment is his total failure to mention Title 42; the most sweeping anti-asylum policy adopted by Trump in all four years... and one that Biden has largely kept in place!

Read more about Title 42 from us here: americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/guide…

Moving on to "Claim No. 2," which is written by Mike Howell.

Hard to fact-check this one because it's all this guy's opinion. Seriously. He tries to fact-checks the word "urgent" and basically says that if Biden doesn't do exactly what he wants, the response isn't "urgent." OK.

Moving on to "Claim No. 3," written by Lora Ries (who testified as the minority witness in the Congressional hearing I testified at last week).

Ries admits Biden's statement is true but calls it misleading, accusing Biden of effectively "throwing everything in the closet."

Unaccompanied children are worse off in Border Patrol custody, and images of crowded CBP cells were what sparked the mainstream calls of a "crisis." Ries is ignoring that when conflating CBP custody with ORR shelters. Plus, Biden is finally beginning to clear the shelters now!

Ries ends her "fact-check" with an opinion: unless Biden cracks down on migrant children, we'll keep seeing "sky-high numbers."

But the number of unaccompanied kids encountered in April will be 10-15% lower than March. We've already hit the peak, despite Biden changing nothing!

Moving to "Claim No. 4," which Chad Wolf responds to, where Biden said that DHS did not fully cooperate with the transition team, thus putting some blame on outgoing Trump officials (like Wolf himself) for the current situation at the border.

Wolf... is not happy.

Wolf claims that DHS officials met with the transition team more than 200 times to provide briefings, and suggests someone should FOIA them.

Of course, under FOIA all you'd be able to get was a confirmation the meeting happened and likely nothing on substance.

Now the meat of Wolf's counter to Biden's claim of a sabotaged transition: basically, "we told you not to do things we didn't like and you went ahead and did them."

Except... that doesn't refute Biden's claim. In fact, it supports it. All they did was warn, not prepare!

Wolf also attacks a strawman by deliberately misrepresenting what Biden said here.

Biden never said any staff was fired *during transition.* He says they learned after taking office that "[Trump's DHS] had fired a whole lot of people, that they were understaffed considerably."

So Wolf's defense to Biden's claim of transition team sabotage is to:

- Attack a strawman
- Say they met a lot and warned Biden not to undo Trump policies.

Notably absent? Claims that they dutifully prepared to carry out the new administrations' policies.

Taking a break now before I get to Claims No. 5 and 6, so will be back to this thread later.