Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) falsely claimed during the third 2020 Democrat presidential primary debate that physical barriers at the U.S.-Mexico border built under the Bush and Obama administrations have killed “thousands” of border crossers and illegal aliens.

“Democrats and Republicans, alike, voted to build a wall that has produced thousands of deaths of people trying to cross to join family or to work a job,” O’Rourke claimed when pressed on what he would do about the at least 4.5 to six million visa overstays living in the U.S.

O’Rourke’s claim that existing physical barriers at the southern border, of which there is nearly 700 miles, are responsible for the deaths of border crossers and illegal aliens is false.

As Breitbart News has reported, hundreds of border crossers and illegal aliens die every year while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. President Trump has actually cut the rate at which illegal aliens are dying at the border with a number of new immigration controls to keep foreign nationals from attempting to cross in the first place.

While nearly 3,000 border crossers and illegal aliens died after crossing the southern border under the Obama administration’s eight years, existing physical barriers did not “produce” those deaths as suggested by O’Rourke.

The Migration Data Portal finds that it is a mystery what causes the majority of deaths at the southern border, while drowning tends to be the highest known cause of death among border crossers. Other causes of death include hypothermia.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.