Trump Says He Can't Prove Claim About Migrant Caravan

He said 'unknown Middle Easterners' were among group making its way to border
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 24, 2018 2:11 AM CDT
Trump Admits He Has No Proof of 'Middle Easterners' in Migrant Caravan
A migrant bound for the US.-Mexico border holds up a sign with a message that reads in Spanish: "To emigrate is not a crime, let's be free, without borders," on a bridge that stretches over the Suchiate River, connecting Guatemala and Mexico, in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, Friday, Oct. 19, 2018.   (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

President Trump has admitted that he has no proof for his claim that "unknown Middle Easterners" are part of a caravan of migrants making its way to the US border from Central America. He told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he had received "very good information," but no proof, ABC reports. "There's no proof of anything. But there could very well be," Trump said. He said that over the years, "all sorts of people" from the Middle East had been intercepted at America's southern border. "They have intercepted wonderful people from the Middle East," he said. "And they have intercepted bad ones." The caravan was in Huixtla, Mexico, on Tuesday, about 1,000 miles from the US border.

When the Washington Post asked Mike Pence earlier Tuesday if he could back up Trump's claims, he said it is "inconceivable that there are not people of Middle Eastern descent in a crowd of more than 7,000 people advancing toward our border." The vice president also claimed that in the last fiscal year, 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists from the Middle East were stopped at the US-Mexico border every day. Pence had his facts mixed up, according to the AP: His own office says US Customs and Border Protection stopped an average of 10 people a day last year trying to enter the US from countries with suspected links to terrorism, but most of them were stopped at airports, not the southern border. (Trump has also claimed that Democrats are behind the caravan.)

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