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Julián Castro, reportedly under consideration for the Democratic vice presidential nod, talks to reporters (right) with his brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, June 17, 2016 (The Associated Press photo).
Texan Julián Castro, reportedly among Democrats being vetted to be Hillary Clinton’s running mate, has a Half True through True report card on the Truth-O-Meter.
Castro, 41, made his PolitiFact debut in June 2012 with a Half True claim to Texas Democrats that under Mitt Romney as governor, Massachusetts ranked 47th nationally in job creation. Castro, then the mayor of San Antonio, was right about the rank. But we found he put too much stock in any governor's influence over her or his state's rate of job growth.
In the same 2012 speech, Castro charged then-Gov. Rick Perry’s administration with leaving 12,000 teachers without a job. That reference to Perry-endorsed budget decisions proved Half True.
Castro, we found, relied on an out-of-date, what-if projection -- not actual job losses. Still, school districts shed nearly 11,000 teaching positions in the first school year affected by the $4 billion cut signed into law by Perry. And while it’s uncertain how many of the eliminated positions resulted in unemployed teachers -- retirements also came into play -- it seemed reasonable to speculate that many teachers were left jobless.
In 2012, Castro was correct when he said Romney told university students in Ohio that to start a business, they should "borrow money if you have to from your parents." At the time, whether Romney was recommending borrowing money from parents to start a business or to pay for an education or both wasn’t clear. But a Romney aide told the National Journal that Romney was referring to business loans when he suggested students borrow money from their parents," and not borrowing to go to college.
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In April 2014, Castro publicly debated a fellow Texan, Republican Dan Patrick, about immigration issues. Their televised encounter touched off a couple of Castro fact checks.
We found Mostly True a claim by Castro that up "to 45 percent" of illegal immigrants "are not people that physically crossed the southern border or northern border. They are visa overstayers." That was backed up by what was then a nearly eight-year-old estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center, though it was based on calculations suggesting overstayers could comprise as few as 38 percent of illegal residents up to half of them. This range and the age of the estimate amount to additional information missing.
From the same event, we rated True a claim by Castro that Patrick had proposed Arizona-style show-me-your papers legislation" targeting unauthorized immigrants. According to a Texas legislative website, Patrick filed his measure, Senate Bill 126, on Nov. 8, 2010 in anticipation of the 2011 legislative session.
In August 2015, we rated another Castro statement True. As secretary of Housing and Urban Development, he’d said: "Less than half of the poorest American households have a home Internet subscription." About 48 percent of the nation’s poorest quintile of households--the bottom 20 percent--reported a home Internet connection in 2013. Home web access correlates with income, it appeared.
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See Julián Castro’s PolitiFact report card.
