Labor data contradicts Trump's claim that 'most new jobs under Biden went to illegal immigrants'

A new claim by Donald Trump about the impact of unlawful immigration has been refuted. Concretely, the former president and current Republican candidate claimed via his social media platform, Truth Social, that most new jobs created under President Joe Biden have gone to illegal immigrants:

"Most new jobs under Biden went to illegal Immigrants. Additionally, he got what is known as Covid Bounce-back jobs, standard for all countries after a pandemic. He did terribly on jobs, and everything else!

These claims, however, contrast with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which show significant job growth during Biden's tenure, including among the American-born workforce, according to Forbes' Molly Bohannon.

"The number of employed American-born people in the workforce has grown about 6% under Biden and the number of employed foreign-born people in the workforce has grown 22%," explained Bohannon, adding that during Trump's presidency "the number of employed foreign-born people decreased by 1.6%, and American-born employees saw a 1.4% decline."

What's more, the article by Forbes points out a conceptual error. The labor department's foreign-born workers category includes legally immigrated workers, naturalized citizens, undocumented workers, refugees and temporary workers but it doesn't provide data on how many fall into which group. That means that it's not possible to say the increase in foreign-born people getting jobs in the U.S. shows an increase in illegal workers.

Furthermore, the article also debunks Trump's take on what he calls "Covid bounce-back jobs":

"Job growth under Biden extends beyond a post-pandemic bounce back: In February 2020 there were 15.2 million non-farm employees in the U.S. compared to about 15.8 million now, marking about a 4.4% increase in total jobs, according to total nonfarm payrolls, the most-cited measure of total employment, which encompasses most American workers."

It's not the first time a related claim by Trump is debunked. During his first and only debate with President Biden in June he claimed that "the millions of people that he (Biden) has allowed to come in through the border are taking Black jobs now," a comment that sparked outrage in everyone from the NAACP to BlackPAC.

He also claimed during a recent sit down with Elon Musk that "20 million people have come across the border" and that "the ocean is going to rise one eighth of an inch over the next 400 years", both claims rebuked by the BBC.