Since late 2024, internet users have shared a quote about how to keep "rapists and criminals" out of the United States, attributing the quote to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
In many posts, the quote appeared as part of a meme that purported to show a genuine exchange between Sheinbaum and U.S. President Donald Trump, which read as follows:
Trump: "I just had a conversation with President Sheinbaum, of Mexico. She will stop rapists and criminals from coming here"
Sheinbaum: "I told President Trump the best way to make rapists and criminals feel unwelcome in the U.S., is for their citizens to stop electing them"
(Facebook user Talula Belle Tortie)
Examples of the claim appeared on platforms including X (archived), Threads (archived) and Facebook (archived).
However, there was no demonstrable evidence that Sheinbaum ever told Trump the U.S. should "stop electing" rapists and criminals. A Google search (archived) for the terms "Sheinbaum," "rapists" and "criminals" returned no credible news reports about the incendiary quote, which would have made headlines if Sheinbaum had really said it.
Furthermore, in February 2025, representatives for Sheinbaum told Reuters that the Mexican president never said the quote. As a result, we've rated the quote's attribution to Sheinbaum incorrect.
Sheinbaum's alleged quip appeared to pointedly reference real details about Trump, which may have led some internet users to believe the quote was genuine.
For instance, in 2015, Trump genuinely said of Mexico, "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best ... they're bringing crime. They're rapists." Additionally, a New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying records in 2024. He has also faced multiple high-profile rape allegations — although at the time of this writing none of these had resulted in criminal convictions.
Origin of the quote
The earliest available online instance of the quote was a Nov. 29, 2024, post (archived) that appeared in a liberal-leaning Facebook group named Speak Up Boldly Group.
(Facebook user Jim Coleman)
The full text of the Nov. 29 post read:
Trump "I had a great call with President Shinybum of Mexico. She will stop rapists and criminals from coming here!" President Sheinbaum "I informed Mr. Trump the best way to make rapists and criminals feel unwelcome in America, is for people to stop electing them."
We've reached out to the post's author, and will update this story if and when we hear back.
Although some commenters on the original post appeared to believe the quote was an authentic transcript of an exchange that took place between Sheinbaum and Trump, some features of the post suggested its author may have intended it as satire, although the post included no explicit disclaimer. An example was Trump's alleged mispronunciation or misspelling of Sheinbaum's surname as "Shinybum," which also appeared in some subsequent social media posts featuring screenshots of the Nov. 29 post.
Trump did speak with Sheinbaum on Nov. 27, 2024, two days before the earliest available instances of the quote investigated here appeared online. However, the president at the time was Joe Biden, not Trump. Trump's second term as president began on Jan. 20, 2025.
At the time of this writing, neither Trump nor Sheinbaum had released a full transcript of the Nov. 27 call. However, in social media posts dated the same day, both leaders said the call went well: Sheinbaum called the conversation "excellent" in an X post (archived), and Trump called it "wonderful" in a Truth Social post (archived).
Previously, we looked into whether Sheinbaum authentically stopped migrant caravans heading to the U.S.-Mexico border in response to Trump's threats of tariffs.