Donald Trump has made immigration among the core campaign issues driving his 2024 White House ambitions, mimicking the anti-immigration proposals that followed his first presidential run.
The former president has said that he plans to reintroduce and expand his travel ban that targeted Muslim countries and “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American History,” The Hill reported this week.
However, according to one post this week, Trump has embraced a new and particularly vicious stance on border security, using alligators on migrant children in an attempt to prevent border crossings.
Getty Images/Scott Olson
The Claim
An article by MeidasTouch, posted on September 21, 2023, alleged that Trump “Proposed Feeding Migrant Children to Alligators in Truth Social Post.”
The article included what appeared to be a post by Trump on Truth Social, which included an image of four alligators with the caption “NEW BORDER SECURITY WILL WORK FOR FOOD.” Trump wrote next to the picture: “Problem solved!”
The Facts
While the Truth Social post was from Trump’s official account, he didn’t state that migrant children specifically should be fed to alligators, nor does the post appear to be a serious policy proposal.
The comment does not mention children, nor are there other posts around this time that mention them.
The claim appears to be an inference that if Trump thought alligators could be used as a border security measure, then children could fall victim to them.
As the article states: “The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission warns to watch children when near water as alligators are known to attack them. Migrant children would be vulnerable to death under Trump’s proposal.”
The article also quotes an X, formerly Twitter, post by Trump from 2019 in which he denied claims that he wanted to use alligators to guard the border.
“Now the press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a Moat stuffed with alligators and snakes, with an electrified fence and sharp spikes on top, at our Southern Border,” Trump wrote. “I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough.”
It’s not clear that the post on Truth Social is a serious policy proposal, either. The picture is presented in a meme format, suggesting it may have been meant as a joke or satire.
In any case, Trump does not make reference to feeding children to alligators.
Newsweek has reached out to a spokesperson for Trump via email for comment.
The Ruling
Needs Context.
Donald Trump did not propose that migrant children should be fed to alligators. It was an inference from a post that he sent on Truth Social about using alligators as a form of border security, which said they would “WORK FOR FOOD.”
It does not appear that this was a serious policy proposal or suggestion, and Trump made no reference to children in the post or elsewhere.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team