Fact Check: Katie Britt Says Joe Biden Stopped All Deportations

Senator Katie Britt has faced criticism and mockery after she gave the Republican Party's response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address last week.

Britt's delivery of her speech was made fun of, and she also was accused of spreading misleading information. The Alabama Republican retold a story about a 12-year-old sex trafficking victim she had met, implying that the events she described happened during Biden's presidency.

However, an investigation by Talking Points Memo journalist Jonathan Katz provided evidence strongly suggesting that Britt's encounter happened between 2004 and 2008, when Biden was not in the White House.

In the days that followed, Britt tried to defend her comments but in doing so made another questionable statement.

The Claim

During an interview with Shannon Bream on Fox News on Sunday, Britt was asked if she had meant to "give the impression" that the events in her story about the sex trafficking victim happened "under Joe Biden's watch."

Britt replied: "No, Shannon. Look, I very specifically said this is what President Biden did in his first 100 days. Minutes after coming into office, he stopped all deportations, he halted construction of the border wall, and he said, 'I am going to give amnesty to millions.'"

The Facts

Newsweek has already examined one of these claims: that Biden stopped the construction of the border wall. While the president did pause construction when he entered office, his administration later commissioned additional building work on the wall.

Britt's claim about Biden stopping deportations is similarly misleading. In his first 100 days in office, his administration attempted to pause deportations of some immigrants but not all.

The 100-day pause did not apply to those who had "engaged in or are suspected of terrorism or espionage" or otherwise posed a danger to national security; were not physically present in the U.S. before November 1, 2020; and had waived their rights to remain in the U.S.

The pause also did not apply to anyone whom the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in consultation with general counsel, had determined must be removed by law.

The plan faced fierce resistance in the courts and was suspended in late January after a federal judge agreed to a temporary restraining order against the Department of Homeland Security. The Biden administration plan was blocked in the Supreme Court in July 2022 after it tried to get a ruling from the justices following conflicting decisions by federal appeals courts, PBS reported.

Statistics from ICE show that the U.S. "removed" 16,742 people from the country between January and April 2021.

A spokesperson for Britt confirmed that she was referring to a Biden administration memorandum regarding the 100-day immigration pause, noting that there were "small exceptions to the pause."

"Actions by the courts do not change the fact that the policy of the Biden administration, upon taking office, was [to put] a pause on removals," the spokesperson added.

On Monday, the sex trafficking victim Britt cited accused the senator of "distorting my story."

Karla Jacinto Romero, who was sex trafficked in Mexico at a young age, told CNN on Sunday that felt she had been taken advantage of. She confirmed that there were several factual inaccuracies in Britt's telling of her story, according to reports.

The Ruling

False.

Biden did not stop all deportations during his first 100 days in office. His administration attempted to implement a pause affecting some immigrants, focusing on select groups such as those suspected of or who had engaged in terrorism and espionage. The pause was blocked in the courts.

Furthermore, records show that the U.S. deported thousands of people in the first 100 days of Biden's presidency.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team

Update 3/12/24, 8:16 a.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from a spokesperson for Senator Katie Britt.