KUOW’s January 22 edition of Sound Side kicked off with an extended excerpt from their podcast Sound Politics, in which co-hosts Libby Denkmann and Scott Greenstone took stock of President Trump’s first year in office by interviewing two elected politicians, a Republican and a Democrat.
Their first question, to Republican U.S. Representative Michael Baumgartner, concerned Trump’s immigration policy:
Deportations have become a much more visible part of American life, I think. ICE and CBP agents are operating in cities, sometimes creating tension with city residents and officials. … Reports of masked officers throwing people in unmarked vans do have people scared. I want to ask you, one year in, do you think this approach is working? And what do you say to people who are scared?
Before getting to the congressman’s response, I’d like to point out that “creating tension” is a rather understated way to describe “masked officers throwing people in unmarked vans,” to say nothing of shooting and killing a U.S. citizen in the street.[✲] And asking if such tactics are “working” – instead of asking if they’re lawful – is a similarly understated, even strange, question to pose.
That said, here’s how Baumgartner began his response:
Well, the boarder was an absolute debacle under Joe Biden where between 12 to 20 million people came into the country without any form of due process or legal authorization.
Does Baumgartner have a source for the “12 to 20 million” figure? Because that’s a pretty big number. Similar numbers have been thrown around by other MAGA Republicans, e.g. White House advisor Stephen Miller and Vice President J.D. Vance. Unfortunately for them, Newsweek rated their claim false. Evangelical Christian preacher Franklin Graham went with 10 million – smaller, but still rather high. You’ll never guess what happened: Politifact rated it false. FactCheck.org doesn’t like those numbers, either.
Yet the unsuspecting listener is left unaware because Greeenstone didn’t ask the congressman for any documentation.
It’s notable that Greenstone’s co-host fact checked him for a different claim, that the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act removes medicare coverage from illegal immigrants. Denkmann pointed out that the law removes insurance from legal immigrants such as refugees and asylum seekers; it has no effect on undocumented immigrants, who didn’t have access to federal health insurance in the first place.
Fine. But why was there no fact check for the number of illegal immigrants?