BORDER/IMMIGRATION/MIDDLE EAST/RACISM/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “On Twitter on Monday [10-22-18], President Trump said that ‘unknown Middle Easterners’ had infiltrated the caravan. That and almost all of his other assertions were inaccurate, misleading or incomplete…There is no evidence that ‘unknown Middle Easterners’ have infiltrated the migrant caravan heading toward the United States’ southern border. Reporters with The New York Times and other news media outlets traveling with the caravan say they have not seen any Middle Easterners in the group. No government agency has confirmed Mr. Trump’s claim…Mr. Trump’s tweet came soon after a ‘Fox & Friends’ segment in which Pete Hegseth, a co-host, cited a claim from the president of Guatemala, Jimmy Morales, that his government had arrested ‘over 100 ISIS fighters.’ Mr. Hegseth floated the possibility that terrorists could have infiltrated the caravan. Asked by a co-host whether he was sure that was true, Mr. Hegseth conceded that ‘it hasn’t been verified.’”
–Linda Qiu, “Trump’s Evidence-Free Claims About the Migrant Caravan,” The New York Times online, October 22, 2018