Vance Won’t Stop Attacks On Haitians Legally In U.S., Falsely Claims They’re ‘Illegal Aliens’

Ohio Sen. JD Vance ® said Wednesday he would continue to falsely call Haitian migrants living legally in the United States “illegal aliens,” doubling down on his racist rhetoric once more after spreading lies about immigrants eating people’s pets.

Vance was asked about Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio, and how he planned to remove the estimated 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants living there. The city has seen a surge in immigration in recent years but was unexpectedly thrust into the national spotlight after Vance and later former President Donald Trump bolstered lies about the city’s newcomers eating local cats and dogs.

The senator, who is Trump’s running mate, dialed up his attacks against the Haitian community on Thursday.

“The media loves to say that the Haitian migrants, hundreds of thousands of them by the way … they are here legally,” Vance said during a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. “And what they mean is Kamala Harris used two separate programs, mass parole and Temporary Protected Status, she used two programs to wave a wand and to say we’re not going to deport those people here.”

“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,” he went on. “An illegal action from Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal, that is not how this works.”

His comments are misleading: An estimated 300,000 Haitians have been granted residence in the United States under a provision known as Temporary Protected Status, which allows foreign nationals of some countries facing disasters or political turmoil to live in the U.S. legally.

Haiti has been rocked by a series of disasters and political upheaval, and President Joe Biden identified the