Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance on Thursday walked back previous comments he made calling Haitian migrants who entered the U.S. through the Biden administration's parole system or avoided deportation “illegal immigrants” amid an ongoing debate over immigration into the United States.
Asked at a campaign event why he refers to Haitian immigrants living in towns like Springfield, Ohio, as “illegal immigrants,” when many of them entered the country through the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan (CHNV) parole process or are protected from deportation by Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
“The media likes to say that Haitian immigrants are here legally. For your information, there are 20,000 in Springfield, but hundreds of thousands across the country.”
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Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance spoke Thursday about the issue of Haitian immigration. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
“What they're trying to say is that Kamala Harris used two separate programs, mass parole and temporary protected status, and she used those two programs to wave a magic wand and say we're not going to deport people who are here,” he said. “If Kamala Harris were to wave a magic wand illegally and say these people are here legally, I would still call them illegal immigrants. Kamala Harris' illegal actions don't make any aliens legal. That's not how it works.”
The CHNV parole process will be expanded by the Department of Homeland Security in 2023 to allow up to 30,000 migrants from those four countries to enter the United States each month if they pass a screening process and have a sponsor in the United States.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration last year redesignated and expanded TPS for Haiti, providing protection from deportation and work authorization to hundreds of thousands of Haitians, including those in the country illegally.
Republicans oppose the Biden administration's use of parole, both the CHNV program and its use of the CBP One app at ports of entry to allow 1,450 migrants a day on parole. They argue that such a large number of parole attempts violate Congress' “case-by-case” limit on the use of parole for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public interest. Republican states sued this year over the CHNV program but lost in court.
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“This process for safe and orderly entry into the United States has significantly reduced the number of these individuals encountered at our southern border,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement when the case was decided earlier this year. “It is a key component of our efforts to address the unprecedented levels of migration across our hemisphere, and other countries around the world are looking to it as a model for addressing the challenges of rising illegal immigration that they are also experiencing.”
Migrants wait for appointments through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) One Application as they line up to enter a shelter set up by authorities for migrants in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on May 23, 2023. (Photo by Christian Torres Chavez/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The administration says its use of parole encourages legal immigration and has led to a sharp decline in illegal border crossings by people of those nationalities.
“All CHNV beneficiaries are thoroughly screened and investigated by CBP prior to their arrival in the United States and, once they purchase their commercial air ticket, must meet other eligibility criteria to travel safely, orderly and lawfully to the United States,” Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Monday.
“Since Homeland Security implemented these safe, orderly and lawful processes, encounters of CHNV nationals between ports of entry have decreased by 99 percent,” the statement said.
But the debate has come back to the forefront in recent days amid a growing focus on the influx of Haitian immigrants into small towns like Springfield, Ohio, where both Vance and former President Trump have repeated unsubstantiated claims that Haitians in Springfield are eating the pets of people who live there.
The ensuing debate, and the resulting raft of memes, has focused attention on the use of parole. The administration recently announced that more than 1.3 million immigrants have been allowed into the country using the CBP One app. Critics have pointed out that because they're using parole, many of the immigrants aren't in the country illegally, but Vance disputed that.
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“What's fundamentally illegal is Kamala Harris saying she's going to grant parole to millions of illegal immigrants who come into this country, not on a case-by-case basis. That doesn't magically make them legal,” he said.
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Vance also criticized the administration's use of TPS, which the Trump administration has tried to end for many nationalities, including Haitians.
Vance described TPS as “a government decree that we can't deport people any more.”
The comments show the debate over immigration is spreading beyond the southern border, where migrant numbers have fallen sharply in recent months following President Biden's executive order restricting entry into the United States.
Former President Trump recently said he would “immediately end immigration to America.”
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“We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal immigration, terminate the CBP One App, the app used to smuggle illegal immigrants, revoke deportation exemptions, suspend refugee resettlement, and return illegal immigrants to their home countries (also known as re-immigration),” he said.
Fox News' Sophia Compton contributed to this report.
