Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined conservative host Chris Salcedo on his Newsmax show Aug. 7 to sound off against the Biden administration and its immigration policies as the COVID-19 delta variant fuels another nationwide wave.
“As you know, Biden and NGOs are releasing illegal aliens into Texas with the China virus … and they are losing control as the infected are wandering off inside of Texas cities with free reign inside those cities and towns,” Salcedo said.
“This is exactly what we filed our lawsuit about several months ago,” Paxton replied, referring to an April suit that accuses the Biden administration of encouraging COVID-19 spread in border communities. “And it relates to the president just letting people in.”
“They’re not even testing these people,” Paxton said.
Paxton’s first claim that the Biden administration is “just letting people in” is a claim that has been widely repeated and roundly debunked. PolitiFact has found that, although tens of thousands of people cross the border undetected, the vast majority of migrants encountered by Border Patrol are sent back to Mexico under Title 42 — a Trump-era policy designed to curb COVID-19 spread that the Biden administration has left in place.
Rather, this fact check focuses on Paxton’s claim that the administration is “not even testing these people” being released into the U.S. We found that while there are testing protocols in place, there are examples of cracks in the system through which some untested migrants slip through…
Read the whole story and see how Paxton’s claim rated at PolitiFact, and listen to an interview with PolitiFact’s Brandon Mulder in the audio player above.
