In a post from his personal account on X (formerly known as Twitter), Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) spoke in favor this week of deporting “20 million” people from the United States.
“Not having 20 million illegal aliens who need to be housed (often at public expense) will absolutely make housing more affordable for American citizens. But I see the left’s strategy of making fun of people for suffering under Biden policies continues apace,” Vance said. He was responding to criticism of attacks on Biden. It is unclear that there are even 20 million undocumented immigrants in the United States at all. Available data points instead to an entirely different total.
“People should take a moment to imagine the amount of terror, violence, expense and destruction that is going to be necessary to deport TWENTY MILLION people. And also, think [they] won’t just mess up and grab a whole bunch of American citizens while they’re at it?” replied MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.
“Democrats are spending more time bringing jobs to places like Ohio, where Vance is from, and less time blaming migrants for everything. Also, migrants work 6% of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio, so maybe shut the fuck up and pass bills to make housing more affordable,” said Christian Rincon, who is associated with the Center for American Progress and CAP Action.
Donald Trump himself, who remains on track for Republicans’ presidential nomination for this year’s election, has spoken in favor of mass deportations targeting undocumented immigrants as he’s pursued a return to presidential power. And he has continued peddling the claim that undocumented immigration at the southern border constitutes an “invasion.”
His rhetoric has gotten weirder, too. He’s characterized undocumented immigrants as sometimes speaking languages for which the U.S. isn’t prepared. He described such individuals as “coming from parts unknown, countries that you’ve never heard of — languages that nobody in this country speaks. You know, we don’t even have teachers of some of these languages. Who would think that? We have languages that are like from the planet Mars.”
