Fact-check: Rep. Mary Miller's claim about Mexican caravan the size of Minneapolis not gonna make it

[TexasTowelie]

A Republican congresswoman from east central Illinois took aim at President Joe Biden’s immigration policies by claiming hundreds of thousands of migrants are preparing to cross the nation’s southern border.

“The Biden-Harris caravan is the population of Minneapolis and will enter our country with no vetting, no criminal background checks, no COVID testing and no vaccine requirements,” freshman U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of downstate Oakland tweeted on Oct. 23 atop a video showing a large group of migrants marching from the southern Mexico city of Tapachula.

PolitiFact has debunked numerous claims from others that were part of Miller’s statement, including the Biden administration would allow anyone to cross the border or skip COVID testing and other public safety measures. So we decided to focus this fact-check on Miller’s claim about the size of the recent Tapachula group.

Minneapolis, Minn., is home to nearly 430,000 people, according to the U.S. Census, while the highest estimate we found for the group leaving Tapachula was less than 1% of that total. The congresswoman, who took office in January, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

-snip-

Our ruling

We rate Miller’s claim Pants on Fire!

Read more: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/10/31/22753615/fact-check-immigraton-border-caravan-mexico-mary-miller-minneapolis-politifact

[Tetrachloride]

1. Concerned for covid ? A Republican in Congress?

[Sherman A1]

2. Perhaps, however

We live in a post factual world.

[2naSalit]

3. A trope that worked in the past...

Only thing is that the repugs don't realize is, once you shit on someone they know the smell of the stench of your shit.

We already know the stink on this shit.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Rep. Mary Miller's back to CARAVANS??

Because they were so successful the first time around??? Wing-ding demented echo lady.

I told my Democratic poll workers at the 2018 election that I had raced like crazy to get to the polls before the caravans. This brought a knowing giggle. I knew we had them that day.

[ancianita]

5. People who lie about facts should be required to 1. publicly apologize or 2. face automatic recall.

Ain't nobody got time for that noise.

[Ford_Prefect]

6. Do they take it in turns or are they randomly spouting the memes? Where's the proof?

Where are the satellite photos, the independent news reels, the on-the-spot interviews, Mexican official comments confirming, AP/ UPI/ BBC/ Agence France-Presse reports?????

This is like when TLG would post those bogus pictures of his rally attendance which were faked by way of being stolen images of other much larger events.

One consistent feature seems to be the scale of the lie grows with the telling. Another is the lack of meaningful detail like which towns and regions are the individual members of this group leaving to move north, and where exactly are they now? Rep. Miller's claim about a Mexican caravan of 400.000+ people leaving Tapachula, Mexico (estimated pop. 242, 699) proposes that a crowd larger than that entire city left the area.

400,000 people leaving somewhere would create quite a vacuum. They would generate a rather impressive and significant wave of events along the route of march like a Woodstock-sized crowd enveloping towns and villages along the way, or an army. They would quickly consume local resources of food, water, medical services and shelter. There would be reports of such a flood of people inundating the area much as we saw when so many Californians were evacuating to escape the fires earlier this year.

[Walleye]

7. That is the size of the audience at Woodstock.I think somebody would have spotted them