A tool used by the government to track people who entered the country illegally is being mischaracterized on social media as a smartphone giveaway.
Conservative pundit Nick Adams shared a post April 11 featuring a screenshot of his own tweet from the previous week.
“Joe Biden is giving smartphones away to illegal border crossers,” Adams said. “This is an impeachable offense.”
That misses context about the capabilities of these devices and exactly how they will be used.
Although smartphones are being distributed to immigrants, their purpose and usability is very limited. Immigration officials are issuing the phones so they can monitor immigrants released from custody; the phones cannot be used for other purposes, like going on Facebook or calling friends…
Read the full story and see how Adams’ claim scored at PolitiFact, and listen to an interview with PolitiFact Texas’ Nusaiba Mizan in the audio player above.
