U.S. President Donald Trump referenced a report about immigration from the National Academy of Sciences but didn’t precisely reflect what it says, in a Joint Address to Congress on Tuesday.
A look at some of his claims in his prime-time speech to Congress:
TRUMP: “According to the National Academy of Sciences, our current immigration system costs America’s taxpayers many billions of dollars a year.”
THE FACTS: That’s not exactly what that report says. It says immigrants “contribute to government finances by paying taxes and add expenditures by consuming public services.”
The report found that while first-generation immigrants are more expensive to governments than their native-born counterparts, primarily at the state and local level, immigrants’ children “are among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the population.”
The report found that the “long-run fiscal impact” of immigrants and their children would probably be seen as more positive “if their role in sustaining labor force growth and contributing to innovation and entrepreneurial activity were taken into account.”
READ MORE: Full text of Donald Trump’s Joint Address to Congress