Dan Patrick misses on ISIS, Central America, scores on other charges about Van de Putte

Republican Dan Patrick, running for lieutenant governor, just made a previously questionable claim about the Islamic State group crossing the Rio Grande into Texas.

Some other parts of his Oct. 8 TV ad about Democratic opponent Leticia Van de Putte’s record hold up.

Patrick opens his ad by saying Islamic State group “terrorists threaten to cross our border and kill Americans.” We didn’t focus on this, but in September 2014, our PolitiFact partners in Washington, D.C., looked into a similar claim, concluding it’s highly unlikely that ISIS would operate in Mexico and stage an attack that involves crossing the border. At the time, no experts or government authorities were on record saying as much.

Patrick’s ad otherwise hammers Van de Putte, the Democratic nominee and a state senator from San Antonio. Van de Putte, the narrator said, “opposed putting National Guard troops on the border, would send millions to Central American governments instead and wrote the law giving in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.”

Van de Putte was the Senate sponsor of the House-originated 2001 proposal authorizing in-state tuition for immigrants not living here with legal permission.

She also opposed this summer’s National Guard deployment put in motion by Gov. Rick Perry.

However, we found, Van de Putte didn’t say that instead of placing  troops near the border, the state should aid countries in Central America. Rather, Van de Putte separately urged congressional approval of a request by President Barack Obama including federal aid to such countries. The ad’s conflation of state spending on the Texas troops with the sought federal funding struck us as misleading.

See our work in the Truth-O-Meter article here and with this story. We’re also posting other fact checks from the lieutenant governor’s race.

What else do you hear?