Trump rewrites history in Iowa brag: I 'fought obstructionist left-wing judges — and won'
An editorial by Donald Trump published in the Des Moines Register on Wednesday attempts to rewrite history.
The former president and leading Republican primary candidate is spending the last two weeks before Iowa's caucuses talking about a policy that has nothing to do with his 2020 election conspiracies.
According to Trump, under his administration, "we had the most secure border in U.S. history." Trump frequently claims that he secured the border, and accuses President Joe Biden of losing that security the moment he took over.
"Every step of the way, we fought obstructionist left-wing judges and radical Democrat activists who tried to stop us — and we won," Trump also falsely claimed.
In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court, including Chief Justice John Roberts, stopped Trump's attempt to end all protections for children of migrants, known as "Dreamers." Roberts specifically said that Trump's administration was sloppy and the policy was "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act.
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Another Trump-era rule ended up before the court in 2021. The justices "dismissed a dispute over the legality of one of former President Donald Trump's hardline immigration rules that barred immigrants deemed likely to require government benefits from obtaining legal permanent residency," Reuters explained.
In March of 2019, with more than a year left in his presidency, Trump lost at least 63 times at the courts on issues such as immigration, the environment and other issues, the Washington Post explained at the time.
In fact, one of the first acts overturned was the so-called Muslim ban, where Trump attempted to block any travel from majority Muslim nations. The administration changed some of the wording and included a non-Mulsim majority country, and the Court allowed it to move through — though the deadline of the ban expired quickly after it worked its way through court.
His claim that left wing judges tried to stop him dates back years, just 29 "setbacks" for Trump came from the liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, while 34 of them originated from courts not considered left leaning.
Trump's editorial goes on to falsely claim he "built 500 miles of border wall, with many more miles just weeks away from completion."
In fact, Trump didn't build any "wall" at all. He did build a border fence that the administration referred to it as a "border wall system." That "includes physical barriers, detection technology, lighting and patrol access roads," said a 2021 Government Accountability Office report.
The 500 miles was actually a little under 50 miles, according to statements he made upon leaving office. Much of the structure Trump claims credit for was already in place, with him simply rebuilding the fence.
"Before Trump’s 2017 inauguration as president, the southern border had about 654 miles of primary barriers and 37 miles of secondary barriers, according to Customs and Border Protection information from an unpublished Jan. 22, 2021," report, according to PolitiFact. "By January 2021, there were 706 miles of primary barriers and 70 miles of secondary barriers."
"The Customs and Border Protection report says the Trump administration built 52 miles of new primary wall systems and 33 miles of new secondary wall systems where there were none before," the report continued. Trump produced less than 100 miles of new fencing or "wall systems."
Trump's editorial walks through how he will deport people upon taking office and shift the federal budget to dispatch Homeland Security, the FBI, ATF and DEA to enforce his immigration policy.