Fact Check: Pelosi Is Incorrect, MS-13 Members Routinely Pose as Children at Border

During the Democrat response to President Trump’s Oval Office address, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed that minors arriving at the United States-Mexico border are “not a security threat.”

“The fact is, the women and children at the border are not a security threat,” Pelosi said. “They are a humanitarian challenge, a challenge that President Trump’s own cruel and counterproductive policies have only deepened. And the fact is, President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage.”

However, this claim is not true in many cases. In a November 2017 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid, one-third of the 214 MS-13 gang members arrested in the operation had arrived in the U.S. as “Unaccompanied Alien Children” (UACs).

This year, alone, there have been numerous cases of violent MS-13 gang members arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, posing as children.

In April 2018, and MS-13 gang member was caught at the southern border after posing as a UAC. That same month, an adult MS-13 gang member was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol while posing as a UAC and admitted that he was headed to Los Angeles, California.

There were close to 52,000 border crossings on the southern border in November 2018, marking the highest level of illegal immigration in the month of November since 2006.