Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio sharply criticized VP Harris on immigration and public safety during a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday afternoon.
Addressing a crowd in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Vance said Harris had taken away America's “birthright” of public safety and said “it's time to give it back to the people.”
At the Republican National Convention in July, Vance recounted the story of Ann Pfundner, a mother whose 15-year-old son died from fentanyl, and blamed the Biden administration's border policies for the death.
“Don't we all want to raise our children in a community where making mistakes as children doesn't take our lives?” Vance said.
He added that he is a father of three children who will probably grow up and “do things that will really upset me.”
“But I want my kids to grow up in a country where the streets are safe enough that they can make mistakes and learn from them and not lose their lives,” Vance said. “And that's what we need to do. We need to bring public safety back to our country now.”
The Ohio senator and former President Trump was criticized by a father whose son was killed in a bus crash last year, who called on him to stop using his son's death as a “political tool” to spread “hatred” against immigrants.
Vance shifted focus to more local news, such as the arrest of “Mexican drug cartel members” in a Milwaukee suburb.
The immigration issue is not unique to the Southwestern United States, he argued, because “every community is a border community” because of “the problems that Kamala Harris has brought with her.”
“The contrast between President Trump's policies and Kamala Harris' policies is just incredible. Kamala Harris wants to put a moratorium on deportations. Donald Trump wants to reinstate deportations,” Vance said.
He argued that immigrants who enter the country illegally and commit crimes should never have been in the United States in the first place.
“If Donald J. Trump becomes president, they're all going to come home,” Vance said. “We're going to deport immigrants who have committed crimes from this country. … It's that simple. This isn't rocket science.”
America's immigration system has become a major focus of the election campaign, with Republicans seeking to attack both Biden and Harris over the fentanyl crisis, migrant crime and the influx of migrants arriving at the southern border even as crossings have fallen.
Vance recently came under fire for spreading a false claim about Haitian immigrants eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio, a false claim also promoted by Trump during a presidential debate last week. The city saw repercussions in the days since, including bomb threats with harmful messages against immigrants and evacuating schools.
Harris said it was “deeply unfortunate” that Vance and Trump had publicly aired false comments about immigrants in Springfield, adding that they had leaned into racist tropes.
The rally in Eau Claire was Vance's second stop of the day. He was in Michigan on Tuesday where he addressed the apparent assassination attempt on President Trump and blamed Democrats and the media for the former president's increasing security problems.
The Hill has reached out to Harris' campaign for comment.
