(CN) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed on Friday that border patrol agents have been told to allow immigrants to enter the United States illegally so that they can vote in the November election.
Trump made his claim as he received the endorsement of the 16,500-person National Border Patrol Council at Trump Tower.
Neither he nor Art Del Cueto, the union official who conferred the endorsement during an immigration, offered evidence to back up the claim.
Newly admitted immigrants are not eligible to vote, a right reserved to citizens.
But Del Cueto said agents have told him they had directives to ignore immigrants' criminal records, so they can quickly become citizens and gain the right to vote.
"That's a massive story," Trump responded, saying it would be ignored by the media. "They are letting people pour into the country so they can go ahead and vote."
However, union spokesman Shawn Moran, who was in New York with Del Cueto, said later in a telephone interview with the Associated Press that several issues were conflated during the round table discussion.
Ask about Trump's claim as he flew with the president to Chicago on Friday, Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said he hadn't heard the comments, but "I have no idea what he would use to back those up."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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