U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday claimed that the Central African country of Congo released inmates from its prisons and sent them to the U.S. border with Mexico.
The president offered no proof or evidence to back up his claim.
“They emptied the prisons of the Congo into the area of the southern border, and they told them to just walk in, because stupid Americans are going to accept you beautifully,” Trump said at a Friday Mothers’ Day event at the White House. “And these were hard, mean, vicious criminals they allowed into our country.”
The aside was accompanied with no concrete evidence that Congo, a large and impoverished country which has struggled to govern a territory almost the size of Western Europe, intentionally released prisoners and sent them to the United States.
Asked to clarify the president’s comments, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said “it’s common knowledge that dangerous criminals from around the world took advantage of Biden’s open border to flood American communities. President Trump has secured our border and is now working to deport all of these sick criminals, despite Democrat opposition.” She did not offer specific evidence that Congo intentionally released inmates.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for additional information supporting the president’s assertions. Congo’s embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. has deported migrants from other countries to Congo in recent months, as it has also continued to mediate a conflict between Congo and neighboring Rwanda.
The president has previously accused Latin American countries, chiefly Venezuela, of emptying prisons and mental institutions and sending individuals from those facilities to the U.S. border with Mexico. Those claims have undergirded the administration’s reasoning for mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants or immigrants who legally entered the United States under his predecessor but since have been charged with crimes.
Customs and Border Protection under the Biden administration did apprehend some Congolese nationals at the U.S. border with Mexico. While a precise figure is unavailable, those numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.
The Biden administration also accepted tens of thousands of Congolese nationals through the refugee admissions process.
Migrants with known violent criminal records are almost always ineligible to enter the country via asylum or refugee status. But the Trump administration has been quick to note in press releases the handful of instances when it has apprehended unauthorized immigrants who were ineligible to enter the U.S. on those grounds but nevertheless crossed the U.S. border during former President Joe Biden’s tenure.
