At an October rally in Arizona, Mr. Trump criticized Democrats for allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses. “Next thing you know, they’ll want to buy ’em a car,” he speculated. “Then they’ll say the car’s not good enough, we want — how about a Rolls-Royce?”

A day later, at a campaign rally in Nevada, Mr. Trump presented this theory as reality, telling supporters that Democrats wanted to give cars and licenses to undocumented immigrants in addition to free health care and education.

After the claim was debunkedby news outlets, Mr. Trump responded by ridiculing the news media for mentioning the Rolls-Royce, which was not the actual subject of the fact checks.

“They said he gets a Pinocchio for that,” Mr. Trump said to laughter at a campaign rally in Mississippi, referring to The Washington Post’s rating system for false claims. “They got me!”

Links in original, emphasis added.

 Deciphering the Patterns in Trump’s Falsehoods, by Linda Qiu, December 29, 2018,

Let me rebunk the false claim here—all illegals are eligible for licenses, healthcare and education under the Democrats' plans, and refugees have been getting free cars for years, as we reported here almost 20 years ago, when the NYT said that there were "false rumors" that Somali refugees were "getting free cars, courtesy of the government".

"Free cars" also "courtesy of the government"? Our journalistic investigators could have stumbled upon the strange case of the refugee resettlement organization with the used car dealer license. "Free cars" at government expense are very much a part of refugee resettlement.

It works like this: All non-governmental organizations [NGOs] involved in settling refugees – the so-called "refugee contractors" such as the Roman Catholic charities and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society - are using the incredible expanding DHHS Office of Refugee Resettlement Matching Grant program (ORRMG). Now 24 years old, the program was started to encourage direct private giving to refugees. It provided matching federal monies, first equaling and eventually doubling every dollar provided by the NGO refugee contractor.

"Matching grant" refugees are a subset of the contractor's refugee caseload. They have agreed to forgo welfare (except for food stamps and free medical care) for 4 months while participating in the program, which is oriented towards placing the refugee in a job. But the refugee contractors tend to pick refugees who are already job-ready. And, after just 4 months, the refugee can leave the program and go on welfare anyway. In total, the NGO refugee contractor can expect a cash grant from the taxpayer up to a limit of $2,000 per refugee - which can be multiplied by the number of refugees participating in the program.

The refugee contractor's staff salary and administration overhead can be covered with this money.

And the NGO refugee contractor can put up only 20% of its match in actual money - the rest can be donated goods valued at, well, whatever they can get away with.

Enter the free cars. One of the most effective ways for the refugee contractor to raise money is to buy cars or receive them as donations. With a car valued at, say, $2,000 as its "match," the refugee contractor claims $4,000 from the government – twice the value of its "contribution." A refugee receives a free car - presto, free cars at government expense. (And, in this case, the refugee contractor must also show that it spent a whopping $400 in cash, but that could be imputed overhead.)

Only about a third of recent refugees participated in the ORRMG. I presume a minority received a free car. I made several calls to the Office of Refugee Resettlement to determine how many. But, apparently, no one at ORR knows - even though, under ORRMG guidelines, the contractors must show how they meet their "match" for each claim.

But we do know that Catholic Social Services in Lincoln, Nebraska is dealing in so many cars under ORRMG it was required by the state to register as a used car dealer!

Paranoids Can Have Enemies. Refugee "False Rumors" Can Be True,

by Thomas Allen, VDARE.com,

And if you still wanted to make this a "false claim" by saying refugees are different from illegals, they're not. People come in illegally and claim refugee status, refugees get rejected and refuse to leave, still being illegal.

 

Charities ignore the immigrants legal status when giving free cars, what they're concerned about is the tax deduction.

 

But finally, the only mention of legal immigration is Trump's boilerplate phrase