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Gas prices up again? What’s going on?

Redistricting

Have 25 million undocumented immigrants entered the U.S. and stayed during the Biden-Harris administration?

Peopel crossing the border at night

Migrants cross into the United States from Mexico through an abandoned railroad on June 28, in Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif.

Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images
Tom Kertscher, Wisconsin Watch
By Tom Kertscher, Wisconsin WatchSep 09, 2024
Tom Kertscher, Wisconsin Watch
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This fact brief was originally published by Wisconsin Watch. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Have 25 million undocumented immigrants entered the U.S. and stayed during the Biden-Harris administration?

No.

Authorities estimate the number of undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. during the Biden-Harris administration and remained at far less than the 25 million that Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance claimed.

Vance said Aug. 28, 2024, in De Pere, Wis.:

"Kamala Harris let in 25 million illegal aliens ... the 25 million people who are here in this country illegally."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 10 million migrant encounters — one person one or more times — from February 2021 through July 2024.

However, millions were turned away, returned or deported.

The nonprofit Migration Policy Institute estimates there were 6 million entries between January 2021 and April 2024.

Customs and Border Protection also estimated about 2 million “got-aways” — border crossers who evaded authorities — 385,707 in 2021, 737,244 in 2022, and 694,685 in 2023.

Vance's spokesperson cited conservative media reports, including one saying there may have been 1 million got-aways in one year.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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Sources

WLUK-TV FOX 11 JD Vance rallies voters in Wisconsin

Customs and Border Protection Nationwide Encounters

News release Chairman Green for RealClearPolitics: No, Biden and Harris’ Border Crisis Is Not Over

USA Today No, 51M 'illegals' have not entered US under Biden, Harris | Fact check

PolitiFact There aren’t 20 million to 30 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally, as Sen. Marco Rubio claimed

Google Docs Migration Policy Institute Aug. 29, 2024

Department of Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2025 Congressional Justification

Department of Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2024 Congressional Justification

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Election 2024

How to win a bar bet on election night

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Social Security card, treasury check and $100 bills
JJ Gouin/Getty Images

In swing states, both parties agree on ideas to save Social Security

A new public consultation survey finds significant bipartisan support for major Social Security proposals — including ideas to increase revenue and cut benefits — that would reduce the program’s long-term shortfall by 78 percent and extend the program’s longevity for decades.

Without any reforms to revenues or benefits, the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted by 2033, and benefits will be cut for all retirees.

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Houses with price tags
retrorocket/Getty Images

Are housing costs driving inflation in 2024?

This fact brief was originally published by EconoFact. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Are housing costs driving inflation in 2024?

Yes.

The rise in housing costs has been a major source of overall inflation, which was 2.9% in the 12 months ending in July 2024.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' shelter index, which includes housing costs for renters and homeowners, rose 5.1% in the 12 months ending in July 2024.

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U.S. Constitution
Douglas Sacha/Getty Images

Imagining constitutions

Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”

This is the latest in “A Republic, if we can keep it,” a series to assist American citizens on the bumpy road ahead this election year. By highlighting components, principles and stories of the Constitution, Breslin hopes to remind us that the American political experiment remains, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, the “most interesting in the world.”

America’s Constitution is always under the microscope, but something different is happening of late: The document’s sanctity is being questioned.

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Federal Reserve building
Hisham Ibrahim/Getty Images

Project 2025: The Federal Reserve

Hill was policy director for the Center for Humane Technology, co-founder of FairVote and political reform director at New America. You can reach him on X @StevenHill1776.

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

Few federal agencies are as misunderstood by the general public as the little known Federal Reserve Board. The Fed, as it is known, oversees the central banking system of the United States. That means it superintends many of the most crucial levers for making the economy run, including maintaining the stability of the financial system, supervising and regulating banks, moderating interest rates and prices, maximizing employment and more. Often when Congress is too politically polarized and paralyzed to fiscally stimulate the economy, many look to the Fed for faster executive action.

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People holding signs against Project 2025 and Donald Trump

Protestors rally against Project 2025 and Donald Trump in New York's Times Square.

Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images

Project 2025: How anti-trans proposals could impact all families

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

Willie Carver has been a teacher in Kentucky since 2007, now working with college students. For over two years, he has worked with the American Federation of Teachers’ National LGBTQ+ Task Force, an advocacy arm of the influential labor union created to counter the rise and repression brought by anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

One of the country’s most draconian anti-trans measures became law in Carver’s home state last March. The law has required teachers to put politics before the wellbeing of their own students and reshaped how students see and treat each other. It bans them from being taught about gender identity or sexual orientation, using restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity and learning about human sexuality. The law also made gender-affirming care illegal for trans youth.

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