PLEASE TELL ME THE CLAIM AND THE COUNTER CLAIM! 2014 White House Press Briefing—Text Version
Press Briefing by Press Secretary JOSH EARNEST, 11/24/2014
1:23 P. M. EDT

Q: One other thing -- last week, the administration and you took great pains to talk about this particular figure related to immigration executive actions taken under George Herbert Walker Bush. Glenn Kessler has done a tremendous amount of fact-checking for The Washington Post. Understanding that it’s precedent that George H. W. Bush did take some actions, they were not nearly as significant, statistically, as represented by this administration in some of the news articles at the time. Will you either retract that or stop using that in the future as part of the defense of the President’s actions?

MR. EARNEST: I will not, Major. The fact of the matter is, the Bush administration did take an executive action that did have an impact on 1.5 million people who were living in this country, and that is about 40 percent of the population -- of the undocumented population at the time. This is something that, as you point out, has been reported by The Associated Press, New York Times, and even the Congressional Research Service. There actually is -- we did a little digging on this because I anticipated that somebody might ask, so --

Q: It’s a fair question.

MR. EARNEST: It is a fair question. February 21st, 1990 -- we had to go far back into the archives -- Mr. Gene McNary, who, at the time, was serving as the INS commissioner, testified before Congress, and he said -- he was asked a specific question by Senator Morrison, I assume, who said, “Under your recent administrative order, these 1.5 million people essentially are here to stay, with work and travel privileges, isn’t that right?” And Mr. McNary said, under oath, “We think you are right as to the 1.5 million being here. There is an estimate of another 1.5 million that could come as a result of this change in definition.” So then Senator Morrison follows up and says, “There is another 1.5 million who you think would become eligible?” Mr. McNary’s answer to that question was, “Yes.”

So according to reports from The New York Times, The Associated Press, The Congressional Research Service, and according to the under-oath testimony of the Secretary -- or of the commissioner of the INS, about 1.5 million people were affected by President Bush’s order.

Q: Those were estimates at the time. As Glenn pointed out in his piece, subsequent numbers obtained from those who actually applied are far, far lower. So those were estimates of what might happen. There are numbers about what actually did happen that are far smaller than that. Do you find that any reason to revise your --

MR. EARNEST: I do not, because, again, what we’re talking about is the number of people who are eligible. There continues to be this open question about the take-up rate, about how many people will actually come forward and apply for this deferred action protection. But the fact is, there are 1.5 million people, about 40 percent of the undocumented population, that would have been eligible for the executive action that President George H. W. Bush announced, and about 40 percent of the undocumented population will be eligible for the executive action that President Obama announced.