JD Vance boasts he’ll keep calling Springfield Haitians ‘illegal aliens’ even though he knows they aren’t

JD Vance has suggested that he will continue to call Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio “illegal” aliens despite knowing that they’re here legally.

During a campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina on Wednesday, Vance was asked by Politico what would happen to migrants in the country under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, such as many of those in Springfield, during a possible second Trump administration. The Republican vice presidential nominee was also asked how the administration would go about deporting migrants in the country legally.

“The media loves to say that the Haitian migrants hundreds of thousands of them, by the way, 20,000 in Springfield, but hundreds of thousands of them all across the country, they are here legally,” Vance said. “And what they mean is that Kamala Harris used two separate programs, mass parole and temporary protective status… to wave a wand and to say, ‘We're not going to deport those people here.’”

He added: “Well, if Kamala Harris waves the wand illegally and says these people are now here legally, I'm still going to call them an illegal alien. And illegal action from Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal. That is not how this works.”

Many of the Haitian migrants currently in the US came to the country under the Biden administration’s TPS and Humanitarian parole program, which allows migrants from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela to come to the US legally if they have a sponsor and meet certain requirements. Some who are eligible can wait in the country as their permanent immigration status is ironed out.

The city of Springfield states on its website that “YES, Haitian immigrants are here legally, under the Immigration Parole Program. Once here, immigrants