Donald Trump on Saturday provided a false narrative about Hillary Clinton's immigration policy, asserting she wants to "abolish borders," misstating her position on an issue that is crucial to his candidacy.
"Clinton is the first person in history to run for the presidency who is proposing to abolish the borders around the country that she is supposed to protect," the Republican presidential nominee said in Houston to family members of people killed by people in the country illegally.
The Democratic nominee supports a path to legal status for the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally. None of Clinton's proposals suggests abolishing borders, as Trump claimed.
Indeed, her plan calls for boosting border security and "detaining and deporting those individuals who pose a violent threat to public safety."
On Friday, Trump falsely claimed that Clinton had begun the birther movement that insisted _ wrongly _ that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and thus was not eligible to be president.
Critics said the fringe group was a racially motivated effort to delegitimize America's first black president. Trump publicly questioned Obama's citizenship for five years before he finally backed down Friday without explanation or apology.
Since he announced his candidacy, Trump has highlighted the stories of individuals who have family members who were killed by people in the country illegally.
Among his surrogates is Jamiel Shaw, whose son, a high school football standout in Los Angeles, was killed in 2008 by a man in the country illegally.
During the Republican primary season, Trump insisted that his administration would use a "deportation force" to find and expel everyone in the country illegally. He also questioned the constitutional guarantee of U.S. citizenship to anyone born here.
He has dialed back in recent weeks, saying that mass deportations are unlikely and that he would focus on deporting those here illegally who have criminal records. That's essentially the same policy that Clinton has proposed and that the Obama administration already follows.
