Actually, many of them don’t.
Many of the proposals were more to the left than Biden’s own proposals during the primaries, when he presented himself as a relative moderate against the democratic socialists Sanders and other ardent progressives. But while Trump accurately described some of the new proposals, such as ending the cash bond, mandatory minimum penalties, and death penalty, providing free college tuition to all students, regardless of immigration status, and the transition. to a zero emission fleet of government vehicles, – misdescribed many others.
And Trump made his false and misleading claims while reading a prepared text, creating the inaccurate impression that he was reciting the actual words from the task force document.
Immigration detention
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “Abolish immigration detention. No more arrests. You come here illegally, no more arrests.”
What the working groups really recommended: Abolish for-profit immigration detention centers, not all immigration detention.
The working groups advocated reducing the use of immigration detention, treating it as “a last resort, not noncompliance,” but never proposed eliminating it entirely.
Charter schools
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “Abolish all charter schools.”
What the working groups really recommended: Prohibit for-profit charter schools from receiving federal funds, not abolish all charter schools.
The working groups took a generally skeptical approach to charter schools, asking “to condition federal funding for new expanded charter schools or charter school renovations in a district review of whether the charter school will systematically neglect the neediest students “
New buildings
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “Require net net carbon emissions for homes, offices and all new buildings by 2030.” He added: “That basically means there are no windows, there is nothing.”
What the working groups really recommended: Set a “goal,” not impose a mandate, to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions for all new buildings by 2030. This would not mean the end of windows: buildings with lots of windows can have net emissions zero, which means they produce as much renewable energy as the energy they consume.
Policeman
What Trump claimed that task forces want: “They want to abolish our police departments.”
What the working groups really recommended: Various police reforms, including stricter rules on the use of force, prohibition of strangulation, ending racial profiling and stopping the transfer of military equipment to police departments, and federal funding for a new civilian corps of “unarmed”. First responders, such as social workers, emergency medical technicians, and trained mental health professionals, who can handle non-violent emergencies “so that the police can focus on violent crimes.
None of this comes close to abolishing police departments.
The border wall and borders in general
What Trump said the task forces want: “Well, basically, as you know, what they are going to do is knock down the wall. They are knocking it down.” He also said: “They don’t want to have borders at all.”
The working groups called the wall “unnecessary, wasteful and ineffective”, but did not ask to tear down the parts that have already been built. And they did not propose anything like the abolition of borders.
Deportations
What Trump claimed the task forces said“Stop all deportation. So if we get a member of the MS-13 gang, which we have taken out of our country by the thousands … you can no longer do that. Stop all deportations.”
What the working groups really recommended: A “100-day moratorium on deportations of people already in the United States” to enable transformative changes to be made in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection enforcement practices.
So there was some basis for Trump’s claim here, but a moratorium is not a permanent halt. And even the moratorium would not apply to people who are detained trying to cross the border during the 100-day period.
Immigration prosecutions
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “End the prosecution of illegal border crossings. Oh, okay, they enter illegally and we have to stop the whole process.”
What the working groups really recommended: End the prosecution of “border asylum seekers”, not all who cross the border illegally, and end “indiscriminate” prosecutions that do not consider the circumstances of individuals’ individual cases.
Asylum
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “Expand asylum for all new illegal aliens.” He added: “How about that one? All the new illegal aliens are expanding the asylum.”
What the working groups really recommended: “Protect and expand the existing asylum system and other humanitarian protections,” but do not grant asylum to “all” undocumented newcomers, as Trump’s vague words may have suggested.
Welfare for undocumented immigrants
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “Register new immigrants for immediate social assistance … We register them immediately. They receive social assistance benefits.” Then he said, “Citizens of the United States don’t get what they want to give to illegal immigrants.”
What the working groups really recommended: For “legally present” immigrants, not the undocumented population, who are working with Congress to eliminate the current five-year waiting period to access two health insurance programs, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) . (Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for these programs, regardless of how long they have been in the country.)
Citizens are already eligible for Medicaid and CHIP. The working groups do not propose to create special benefits for undocumented immigrants.
Health care
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “They want government medical care for all illegal aliens.”
What the working groups really recommended: Undocumented people will be allowed to buy insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) exchange markets, but only without the government subsidies that are available to other buyers.
A subset of approximately 650,000 undocumented immigrants, beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), people who illegally came to the United States as children, would generally be allowed to obtain coverage through Obamacare. The working groups were not specific about what they meant by this.
It is debatable whether buying insurance through unsubsidized Obamacare exchanges counts as “government health care.” The exchanges were created by a government act, but undocumented people would pay out of their own pockets for insurance from private entities.
Housing and suburbs
What the working groups really recommended: Trump was right this time in politics, the task force recommended implementing the Obama-era rule, but he greatly exaggerated the effect. It is racially encoded nonsense to claim that the suburbs would be abolished if they were more integrated.
Prosecutors
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “Appoint social justice prosecutors to free violent criminals.”
What the working groups really recommended: “Appoint people committed to criminal justice reform to key fiscal positions” in the federal government, including the attorney general, and support “progressive prosecutors” at the state level seeking to “ensure public safety and reduce incarceration.”
Educational standards
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “Abolish educational standards”.
What the working groups really recommended: “Eliminate high-risk standardized tests,” do not eliminate all norms in the education system, and “encourage states to develop evidence-based approaches to student assessment that are based on multiple and holistic measures that better represent student performance. ”
Solitary confinement
What Trump claimed the task forces said: “End of solitary confinement”.
What the working groups really recommended: “End solitary confinement in all exceptional cases, except in exceptional cases”.
Trump was much more accurate with this claim than with many of the other claims, but he still ignored the fact that the task forces left the door open to some use of solitary confinement.
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