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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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Donald Trump's pick for vice president, J.D. Vance, has backed up calls for the mass deportation of illegal immigrants in the United States, despite it being unclear how such a program would be achieved.
The junior senator from Ohio was chosen by Trump at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin earlier this week and used part of his speech on Wednesday to focus on immigration, a topic the GOP sees as a key plank of its general election strategy.
As part of that appearance, Vance blamed housing issues on illegal immigrants and Democrats, while also advocating for legal migration.
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Vance was joined by his wife, Usha, an attorney and the daughter of Indian immigrants, whom he praised for "enriching" the country.
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Call for Mass Deportation
Like Trump, Vance has called for mass deportation of illegal immigrants – a policy the RNC officially adopted as part of its 2024 platform.
"We have to deport people, we have to deport people who broke our laws who came in here and I think we start with the violent criminals," Vance told Fox News this week.
"President Trump has been very, very effective at communicating on this to the point where now a majority of Americans believe that we need to deport a large number of people who have come here illegally."
A campaign fundraising message send out earlier in July from Vance's campaign included a line backing the move.
"We need to deport every single person who invaded our country illegally," the message read.
Trump has touted that between 15 and 20 million people could be deported under his plans. The estimated number of undocumented migrants in the U.S. is less than that – around 11 million.
Migrants and Jobs
As part of his speech in Milwaukee, Vance said that migrant workers had undercut American wages and forced U.S. citizens out of work.
To chants of "send them back" from Republican supporters, Vance said a second Trump term would increase wages and bring back jobs he claimed had been lost to Mexico and other countries.
Vance said this began after 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, which happened during Republican George W. Bush's first term in the White House.
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Migrants and Housing
The VP nominee spoke about U.S. homebuilders that went out of business during the financial crisis of 2008, putting a dent in new-home construction that continues to this day.
"Then the Democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens," Vance said. "So citizens had to compete with people who shouldn't even be here for precious housing."
According to the Migration Policy Institute's data, around 28%, or three million, illegal immigrants own a home, compared to the roughly 65% of the 333 million American citizens.
Finishing the Wall
When he ran for senate in Ohio in 2022, Vance said that Republicans should finish the job of building the southwest border wall that was a campaign promise of Donald Trump in 2016.
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Large stretches of the wall remain unfinished, following various lawsuits and issues around funding, but the Trump administration did build 458 miles of new and secondary barriers between 2016 and 2020.
'On Our Terms'
"It is part of that tradition that we welcome newcomers," Vance told the RNC, to little applause. "But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms."
He went on to speak about his wife, who was born to Indian immigrants and raised in San Diego. He cited her family as an example of immigrants enriching the country.
Usha Vance's heritage prompted some extremist figures within the MAGA movement to cast doubt on his hardline immigration stance, arguing he couldn't have such views because of his wife's ethnicity.
"Together we will put the citizens of America first, whatever the color of their skin," Vance told the assembled delegates.
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