TCT-IMM-005 · Immigration
The bipartisan Senate bill “allowed” 5,000 illegal entries per day
Statement and context
“That bill allowed 5,000 people a day to enter illegally.”
2024-02-10, campaign rally, Conway, South Carolina; repeated in variants such as “2 million people are allowed in.”
What the evidence shows
The 5,000 figure was a seven-day encounter threshold that would require use of a new emergency authority to summarily remove many people between ports. It was not a quota of people authorized to enter or remain. The secretary could invoke the authority at a lower threshold; unaccompanied children from noncontiguous countries were treated separately under existing law. The bill’s operation and exemptions were debatable policy choices, but “allowed 5,000 illegal entries” reverses what the trigger did.
False
Sources and attribution
Tracker research synthesis; inspect the linked evidence and research record.