CNN’s Jake Tapper reviewed Sen. Marco Rubio’s claim about the U.S. government’s terrorist watch lists.
Rubio told Tapper there are “700,000 Americans on some watch list or another,” but the number is actually in the tens of thousands. The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), the federal government’s central repository of known and suspected international terrorists, had 1.1 million entries as of December 2013, but only 25,000 were American citizens or lawful permanent residents. The FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), commonly referred to as the terrorist watch list, had 800,000 entries in September 2014, but only 40,000 were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
Come fly with me
Several Republican presidential candidates cite Ted Kennedy as a reason why they oppose President Obama’s proposal to block the sale of guns to known or suspected terrorists on the no-fly list. Kennedy was mistakenly placed on the government’s no-fly list, they say. But the Transportation Security Administration calls that a “myth.” It has been reported many times that Kennedy had trouble boarding planes several times in 2004 allegedly because he was on a no-fly list. But the TSA in 2008 said the former Democratic senator from Massachusetts was “NOT on the no-fly or selectee lists.” Kennedy was “misidentified” as someone on the “selectee list.” Those on the selectee list “must undergo additional security screening before being permitted to board.” Kennedy ultimately boarded his flights and didn’t miss any flights.
Deport me
A Democratic super PAC claims that Republican candidates for president are “all on the same page” with Donald Trump. But the ad invites a false conclusion that both Marco Rubio and Trump favor deporting millions of immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal permission. The ad then juxtaposes video clips of some of Trump’s comments with snippets from three leading Republican candidates: Rubio, Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz. Trump and Cruz are both shown opposing granting birthright U.S. citizenship. Carson is shown saying he’s opposed to a Muslim becoming president, after Trump is shown saying he wouldn’t allow Muslims to enter the country. There’s a big gap between deporting millions of people who have been here for years, as Trump says he would do, and deporting “some people” who are criminals, recent arrivals and those overstaying visas, as Rubio proposes. In fact, convicted criminals, terrorism threats and those who recently crossed the border are currently being targeted for deportation even under the Obama administration’s scaled-back enforcement policy. So Rubio is closer to being “on the same page” with Obama than with Trump on this issue.
Chip Tuthill is a longtime resident of Mancos. Website used for this column: www.factcheck.org