Donald Trump ad makes False claims about Kamala Harris, immigration, Social Security

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump launched a 30-second television ad warning older Americans that a Kamala Harris presidency could lead to cuts in Social Security benefits.

"Attention seniors: Kamala Harris has promised amnesty for the 10 million illegals she allowed in as border czar making them eligible for Social Security," the narrator says. "Studies warn this will lead to cuts in your Social Security benefits."

The ad includes several inaccuracies. Ten million additional people are not living in the U.S. illegally under President Joe Biden’s administration. Biden did not appoint Harris "border czar." And Harris has not announced a plan that would provide immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally under Biden a pathway to citizenship.

Trump’s campaign pointed us to statements Harris has made over her political career supporting citizenship pathways for people living in the U.S. illegally. But whether those proposals would hurt Social Security’s solvency is not as clear cut as the ad says.

Let’s unpack the facts behind each piece of the statement.

The Donald Trump campaign is up on TV with this contrast spot targeted at senior voters --

Has aired nationally on cable news nets pic.twitter.com/58FV2qhGLN

— Medium Buying (@MediumBuying) August 28, 2024

Under Biden, border officials have encountered immigrants entering the U.S. illegally about 10 million times. But that doesn’t mean 10 million additional people are now living in the U.S. 

Encounters represent events, so one person who tries to cross the border twice counts for two encounters. Also, encounters don’t mean admissions. Not everyone encountered is let into the country. The Department of Homeland Security estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.

About 3.8 million people have been released into the U.S. to await immigration court hearings under Biden’s administration, Department of Homeland Security data shows. Though there are no official updated statistics yet, there may have been as many as 1.6 million "got aways" — people who evaded border officials from fiscal years 2021 to 2023 (fiscal year 2021 includes about four months of the Trump administration). 

Harris is not in charge of stopping illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. Border security and management is Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ responsibility.

In June 2021, Biden assigned Harris to work alongside officials in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to address the factors driving people to leave those countries and come to the United States. These issues include economic insecurity, corruption, human rights and violence. 

At the 2024 Democratic National Convention in August, Harris said: "We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border."

Days after Trump’s ad aired, Harris launched a campaign website. The site says Harris knows the U.S. immigration system "needs comprehensive reform that includes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship." But she hasn’t detailed how that pathway would look or who exactly would benefit. The Harris campaign did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment.

At the convention, Harris also said, "As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that (Trump) killed, and I will sign it into law."

That border security bill, which failed to pass the Senate twice after Trump urged its demise, would have given immigration officials more funding and changed how asylum is decided for people arriving at the United States’ southwest border. It did not provide a pathway to citizenship for anyone in the U.S. illegally.

On his first day in office, Biden proposed a bill that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for people living in the U.S. as of Jan. 1, 2021. House Democrats introduced the bill in February 2021, but it stalled.

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Harris supported that bill, but she has not spoken about it in her 2024 campaign.

The 2024 Democratic Party platform mentions the bill and says "Congress must pass legislation to provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, farmworkers, careworkers, and other long-term undocumented individuals who contribute to this country."

The term "Dreamers" describes immigrants who illegally entered the U.S. as children. Trump’s ad cites part of a New York Post opinion column’s headline: "Kamala Harris promises mass amnesty." The column referred to a CNN interview in which Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Harris would work with Congress "to create a pathway to citizenship."

On-screen, the ad says: "Harris’ amnesty imposes a large cost on Social Security," attributing that quote to the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank favoring low immigration levels. 

The Center for Immigration Studies did not write that. However, it published a 2021 report that said that providing a pathway to citizenship for the millions of immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally would weaken Social Security’s solvency. The report did not mention Harris.

The key threat to Social Security’s long-term viability is a shortage of workers feeding their tax dollars into the system, alongside a growing number of retirement-age Americans qualifying to receive benefits.

Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are ineligible for Social Security retirement benefits, but estimates have found they pay billions of dollars in Social Security taxes annually. This helps — not harms — the program’s solvency. (Some immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally and then received a temporary permission to stay may be eligible for Supplemental Security Income, a different, need-based program for low-income people or people with disabilities.)

The Center for Immigration Studies argued that providing a pathway to citizenship for the millions of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally would harm Social Security partly because it would reverse the trend of having more beneficiaries than workers paying into the program. Immigrants in the U.S. illegally who are currently paying into the program without receiving benefits would eventually receive benefits if they become eligible.

A 2018 Bipartisan Policy Center report said even though immigration is not a "silver bullet" to save Social Security, immigration can help the program’s problems because it provides additional workers, offsetting some of the imbalance.  

Other reports and economists have agreed with that premise. 

Tara Watson, director of the Brookings Institution Center for Economic Security and Opportunity, said it’s unclear whether a pathway to citizenship would help or hurt Social Security’s solvency. But she added that "legal status bolsters wages of immigrants, leading them to earn more, and encourages work in the formal sector where people contribute to social security."

University of Connecticut economics professor Delia Furtado agreed with Watson. She said Social Security would suffer if immigrants began receiving benefits and nothing else changed. But she said that is "not a reasonable assumption."

Shayak Sarkar, a University of California, Davis law professor said there are workers in the U.S. illegally who do not pay into Social Security, but who would begin paying into the system if they receive legal status.

Trump’s ad also implies that people who are currently benefiting from Social Security would immediately see cuts in their benefits if people received a pathway to citizenship. 

But if Congress passed a bill legalizing people’s immigration status, it generally would take years before immigrants begin receiving Social Security benefits. People who are legally allowed to work can receive Social Security retirement benefits, but only after they’ve worked and paid Social Security taxes for 10 years. So, people would continue to pay into the program for years without receiving benefits.

Finally, the ad’s argument ignores that if Social Security’s finances aren’t improved, across-the-board cuts loom within a decade. Neither Harris nor Trump has proposed any policies to extend that deadline, such as raising the retirement age or cutting benefits.

A Trump ad said "Kamala Harris has promised amnesty for the 10 million illegals she allowed in as border czar making them eligible for Social Security. Studies warn this will lead to cuts in your Social Security benefits."

Ten million new immigrants are not living in the U.S. illegally under Biden. Biden did not make Harris "border czar."

Although Harris has mentioned creating a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. illegally, she hasn’t released specific plans detailing who would benefit.

Economists generally agree that immigration helps Social Security. Social Security’s fiscal challenges stem from a shortage of workers compared with beneficiaries. Immigration alone won’t make the program solvent, but it would increase the worker-to-beneficiary ratio, potentially for decades, extending the program’s fiscal life. Although a 2021 study said providing a pathway to citizenship for immigrants currently in the U.S. illegally would hurt the program, other experts dispute this.

Finding no conclusive evidence to support the ad’s claim and much to dispute it, we rate the ad’s claim False.