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Trump credits border enforcement amid questions on ICE attacks and 'no releases' claim
Summary
At the press event, President Trump said border crossings fell to zero in a 14-month period and tied recent attacks on an ICE facility to immigration policy; he also claimed large removals of criminals but provided no on-the-record data during the event.
Reporters asked President Trump about a reported 14-month period of "no releases" at the southern border and about a fire set in front of a federal building in New York that targeted ICE.
The president said the border had been "totally out of control" previously and claimed that in 14 months "we had nobody coming through" and that the administration had removed nearly 5,000 "hardline hardcore criminals" from Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He described the people who set the fire as "radical lunatics" and said the administration was removing bad actors at an unprecedented pace.
Journalists pressed for the underlying data and broader context. The administration's figures and characterizations were stated on the record during the event but the transcript did not provide supporting documents or official statistics; several numbers cited by the president were presented as claims rather than independently verified facts.
