Yet again, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) did a Sunday show appearance to sell the Trump-Vance ticket, all while the Harris-Walz ticket continues to hide away from the press. He had a particularly memorable exchange when it comes to discussing how to handle the crisis at the southern border, which has been particularly bad under the Biden-Harris administration. During the most recent episode of NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker herself acknowledged that immigration is a “big topic in this race,” although Vance did have to set the record straight.
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From the start, Welker came at it from a particular angle, which included harping on family separations and trying to argue with Vance on the number of illegal immigrants actually here. As Vance reminded, “whatever the real number is, it’s way too high, right? It’s millions upon millions of illegal immigrants that have come in just since Kamala Harris became the border czar a few years ago.”
Despite having claimed she wanted to make this “real quick,” Welker felt the need to argue with Harris’ title as the border czar, which was in fact bestowed upon her in March of 2021. Other mainstream media outlets, especially Axios, as well as Sunday hosts like ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, have issued similar denials.
In response to Welker interrupting Vance to argue Harris “was put in charge of the root causes of migration,” the senator was quick to remind her of what Harris has to do with those “root causes.”
“Well, the root causes of migration, I would say, Kristen, is that Kamala Harris refuses to do her job as border czar. And let’s just start there,” he replied, pointing out “I think it’s important to sort of sequence this the right way.”
“So if you want to get control of the illegal immigration problem, you have to stop the bleeding. You have to stop so many people from coming here illegally in the first place. And that means undoing everything that Kamala Harris did, practically on day one of the administration,” Vance pointed out.” You have to reimpose deportations, you have to stop catch and release, stop granting asylum to every single person who comes in here and says that they need asylum, and stop granting mass parole. These policies are why we have the immigration crisis that we have. So I think focus on fixing the problem. Before we even fix the problem we have to stop the problem from getting worse.”
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Day one of the Trump administration will indeed want to involve overturning the Biden-Harris orders on immigration. Those from the Border Patrol Council have pointed out that the Biden-Harris administration rejected their proposals and thus undid the successes from the previous Trump administration.
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order putting an end to the emergency at the southern border and to funding the border wall.
The Biden-Harris administration has also done plenty more damage, as House Republicans have pointed out.
Welker then went on to outrageously claim that “President Biden passed a series of executive actions, and illegal border crossings are now at their lowest levels in about five years,” and still tried to move on, though Vance again made sure to correct her.
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“Border crossings at the southern border are lower because the Harris administration is sending more immigrants through the ports of entry. So instead of coming through the southern border, they’re now being flown at taxpayer expense to the ports of entry all over our country,” Vance explained. “The number of illegal crossings, Kristen, this is a really important point, they’re not any lower. They’re just shuffling how the people are coming into the country in the first place,” he added, stressing that “this is very important.”
Vance also made sure to get one more dig at Harris as a failed border czar, pointing out that “I don’t want a border czar who makes it more efficient for illegal immigrants to come into this country” and that “that’s why we have the problem that we have.”
When it comes to Welker’s question that she kept harping on, about family separations, Vance pointed out not only that “you start with the most violent criminals in our country,” reminding that “those people need to be deported,” he also pointed out the current plight of children brought over here. This includes there being “a number of children who are currently living with drug cartel members, not actually their families.”
“But it’s very interesting here, because what Kamala Harris says is that Donald Trump wants to separate families. Kamala Harris’ policies have led to thousands upon thousands of migrant children living with sex traffickers and drug cartels,” Vance argued, reminding “that is the consequence of her policies” before Welker jumped in to defend the Biden-Harris administration once more.
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A report issued earlier this month shows that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lost over 32,000 children between 2019 and 2023. A new website from the Trump-Vance campaign highlighting Harris’ “border bloodbath” makes mention of those missing, in addition to other failures.
“Kamala Harris cannot claim that she doesn’t know that her policies are… leading to family separation. They are. And everybody knows it. And she has to take responsibility for that. That’s what real leadership is,” Vance declared.
Further, when it comes to deportations, a June poll from CBS News/YouGov found that 62 percent of voters favor mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
As the segment moved onto another topic for Vance and Welker to discuss, the senator got in another great line about the issue, which is that “actually enforcing our border is the most humane thing, for children and certainly for American citizens.”