TCT-IMM-009 · Crime
Countries are emptying prisons and mental institutions into the United States
Statement and context
“Many of those people come from jails and prisons. Many of those people come from mental institutions and insane asylums.”
2024-01-10, Fox News Iowa town hall; repeated in the 2025 inaugural address as criminals “from prisons and mental institutions.”
What the evidence shows
Individual migrants can have criminal histories, and the 1980 Mariel boatlift included a small minority released from Cuban prisons or mental-health institutions. But Trump and his campaign did not provide evidence of a current, multi-country policy or flow. Immigration researchers and country experts queried by multiple outlets found no evidence of systematic dumping. Because comprehensive origin-country records do not exist, the defensible finding is unsupported rather than a claim that no such individual could ever have migrated.
Unsupported
Sources and attribution
Tracker research synthesis; inspect the linked evidence and research record.