Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, one of the programs the network bills as hard news, provided a platform for Fox Business host Charles Payne to spew unchecked misinformation regarding immigration and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

In a segment discussing President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for 2019, which includes cuts to SNAP, Payne expanded on a quote from Trump that was displayed on screen, inaccurately claiming that “a large majority of” undocumented people in the United States collect welfare benefits. Payne went on to advocate for a SNAP reform proposal that the Trump administration has suggested, espousing the supposed benefits of what the administration is referring to as a “Harvest Box.”

As Payne pushed clear misinformation regarding SNAP benefits, two of Fox’s supposed news anchors, Bill Hemmer and Sandra Smith, sat silently. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for SNAP benefits. Some mixed-status households do receive benefits for members who are eligible, such as U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants, but in those cases “the child’s eligibility does not change their parents’ or any other family members’ eligibility for that benefit.” Payne even misrepresented the report (which was produced by an anti-immigrant organization); Breitbart cited in its interview with Trump; that report claimed that “63 percent of non-citizen households end up on welfare,” while Payne suggested the findings applied specifically to individual undocumented immigrants. Moreover, Trump administration officials have openly admitted to The New York Times that the “Harvest Box” proposal has “virtually no chance of being implemented” and is simply “a political gambit by fiscal hawks in the administration aimed at outraging liberals and stirring up members of the president’s own party working on the latest version of the farm bill.” The plan appears in part to be a way to cut SNAP benefits.

From the March 12 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom:

BILL HEMMER (CO-HOST): Let’s talk about budget and welfare reform. Here is the comment from Breitbart from the president, do we have that here? “I don’t like the idea of people coming in and going on welfare for 50 years” -- I think he was talking about immigrants right? Illegals? “And that’s not what they to be able to do -- that’s not what they want to be able to do -- and it’s no good.”

CHARLES PAYNE (FOX BUSINESS HOST): Well, he was referring, there are some studies out there that show a large majority of illegal immigrants go on public assistance and they stay on there at least for a generation, and it’s very costly to, you know -- this is not necessarily new. You may not hear any president speak like this about it, but, you know, it’s a concern that a lot of American taxpayers have. So, yeah, he put it out there. You know, of course, Nancy Pelosi’s calling this whole thing cruel in the first place, this budget. But, he’s got some other ideas, like this harvest box that the Democrats are against.

HEMMER: What is that?

PAYNE: It’s a food box that 16 million people would get. It’s got -- it would cover about 81 percent of people on food stamps. And, here’s the thing, when food stamps first started in 1939, that’s exactly what it was, the same sort of program. You got a dollar’s worth of stamps that you could buy anything with for household goods, and another 50 cents that you bought surplus food from the federal government. And it was, you know, things that -- you know, beans, rice, cornmeal, eggs -- fresh eggs, so it had a two-prong impact, right? You help the American farmer; you also help the consumer, right? It wasn’t spent on things like potato chips, which, you know, no one wants to be honest, but a lot of the money now food stamp recipients receive are spent on non-healthy items. And it’s ironic because Democrats talk about food deserts all the time, but, you know, if you really care about nutrition, it’s an idea to think about.