GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance spoke with ABC News' Jonathan Karl about a wide variety of topics including immigration and his views on childless Americans.
A) we're talking about the federal government creating camps and sticking millions of people in them. I want that to be very clear. That is a necessary prerequisite to move around millions of people. Remind you of any other period of time in history? Say.. 1930s?
B) these are people that contribute positively to the economy. They
a) pay taxes without pulling from the system
b) work jobs that Americans don't want to do, leading to lower costs for businesses (and by extension, the consumers)
c) stimulate local demand for goods and services by buying stuff from stores, going to restaurants, etc
C) these are people intertwined with the country. Many illegals have been here for years, majority of which have never committed any crime. The only reason their documents haven't been normalized is because it's impossible. The current US immigration system is broken and simply does not allow for the quantity and type of immigration that the economy needs. So the black market fills the void.
My opinion: we should take a page from Reagan and give the millions of illegals amnesty. At least the ones that haven't committed crimes & have paid their taxes.
Then fix the broken immigration system by making it easier for people to come here legally.
We could get rid of illegals in a few months. The people in power don't want that. Illegals are too useful as scapegoats for imaginary problems, and they are also too useful as cheap labor.
They will not actually get rid of illegals because labor price would shoot up which would lead to a massive inflation shock. We're literally just repeating the 1930s. Economy goes to shit, people aren't happy, what do you do?
Find a scapegoat. The problem is Republicans are playing with fire. They think they can control the flames they are fanning but it can pass a point of no return very quickly. I think it already has. Evidence being that even the Democrats are becoming anti-immigrant
A) No, I'm talking about deporting them and not imprisoning them. Bussing them back to their country of origin. No camp involved.
B) Yes, I'm quite aware that having a second class of workers that you can pay less and abuse is important to our economy, but it really shouldn't be. And unless they are stealing SSNs, they are not paying income tax.
C) By definition, illegal immigrants have committed at least one crime.
We should secure the border and deport every single one of them. That's how a functional country operates. You can't have a country if you don't defend your borders.
A) like I said it's a prerequisite to move around millions of people. You need to first collect all of them, put them in camps. And then you would need something like 10% of all airline capacity working round the clock 24/7 for a year in order to move everyone out.
We would need camps. Deporting everyone would mean camps. Like I said- be very clear of what you're suggesting.
B) us gov gives ITIN for people to pay taxes and illegals do. Hard to find a job when most places require i9 and participate in e-verify.
It's easy to start a company, get an ITIN, and work as a subcontractor though. Believe me, vast swathes of our construction industry work in this manner.
C) it is not a criminal act, like getting a speeding ticket is not a criminal act. These people commit dramatically less crime than native-born Americans.
We should secure the border and deport every single one of them. That's how a functional country operates. You can't have a country if you don't defend your borders.
That actually isn't how the US functioned for most of its history. The "illegals" today would have been regular immigrants for the majority of this country's history.
A functional country operates on what is best for the country. Normalizing their status and improving the immigration system is what would actually be done if our country was "functional"