KENOSHA, WISCONSIN – AUGUST 20: Republican vice presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) addresses the audience at a campaign rally on August 20, 2024 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Vance is campaigning in several battleground states as part of his campaign efforts.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, on Saturday evaded multiple questions about whether Trump’s proposed “zero tolerance” policy on immigration would lead to family separation.
First, Vance told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that before imposing mass deportations, Trump would need to “stop the bleeding.”
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“You have to stop so many people from coming here illegally in the first place, and that means undoing everything that [Vice President] Kamala Harris did practically on day one of the administration,” he added, later saying: “Before we even fix the problem, we’ve got to stop the problem from getting worse.”
Asked again by moderator Kristen Welker about whether the Trump administration’s plan would include family separation, Vance dodged again.
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“I think that families are currently being separated,” he said, adding that “you’re certainly going to have to deport some people in this country.”
He argued that mass deportations under Trump would “start with the most violent criminals in our country.”
“Those people need to be deported,” Vance said. “That’s where you focus federal resources.”
Vance went on to blast Harris again, baselessly accusing her of backing policies that led to family separations and to children living with criminals.
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When President Joe Biden and Harris first took office, Biden rescinded the Trump-era zero-tolerance policy and established a family reunification task force that found that more than 5,000 families were separated under the policy.
More recently, the Biden administration worked with a bipartisan group of senators to craft a comprehensive immigration and border security plan that seemed to have buy-in from both parties on Capitol Hill.
But GOP support for the bill tanked after Trump indicated his disapproval of the plan.
Vance’s remarks Saturday came days after Trump visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona for a campaign event.
While there, the former president also dodged NBC News’ questions about whether his proposal for “zero tolerance” policies on the border would lead to family separations, instead saying “provisions will be made” for mixed-status families that may have some members who are American citizens and some who are undocumented.
Trump did not clarify what provisions would be made for those families.
This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:
