Vance says he will keep calling Haitian migrants ‘illegal aliens’ despite parole status

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance on Thursday stood by past remarks calling Haitian migrants who have entered the U.S. through a Biden-era parole program or who are protected from deportation "illegal aliens" — amid an ongoing debate about migration into the U.S.

Vance was asked at a campaign event about why he was referring to migrants from Haiti in towns like Springfield, Ohio, as "illegal aliens" when many of them have come in through the parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV) or are protected from deportation via Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

"The media loves to say that the Haitian migrants — hundreds of thousands of them, by the way, 20,000 in Springfield, but hundreds of thousands of them all across the country — they are here legally."

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"And what they mean is that 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," he said. "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. An illegal action from Kamala Harris does not make any alien legal. That is not how this works. "

The CHNV parole processes were expanded by the Department of Homeland Security in 2023 to allow up to 30,000 migrants from those four countries into the U.S. each month if they are vetted and have a supporter already in the U.S.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration redesignated and extended TPS for Haiti last year, offering protection from deportation and work permits for hundreds of thousands of Haitians — even those in the country illegally.

Republicans have objected to the use of parole programs by the Biden administration, both the CHNV program and the use of the CBP One app at ports of entry to allow in 1,450 migrants per day via parole. They argue that Congress has limited the use of parole to a "case by case" basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit, and that use of parole in such quantities is a breach of that. Republican states sued over the CHNV program this year, but they have lost in court.

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"These processes — a safe and orderly way to reach the United States — have resulted in a significant reduction in the number of these individuals encountered at our southern border," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said earlier this year in a statement when that case was decided. "It is a key element of our efforts to address the unprecedented level of migration throughout our hemisphere, and other countries around the world see it as a model to tackle the challenge of increased irregular migration that they too are experiencing."

The administration says that the use of the parole programs encourages legal immigration and has been tied to a sharp drop in illegal crossings from those nationalities.

"All CHNV beneficiaries continue to be thoroughly screened and vetted by CBP prior to their arrival to the United States and must meet other eligibility criteria authorization to travel to the United States in a safe, orderly and lawful way once they purchase their own commercial airline tickets," Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Monday.

"Since DHS has implemented these safe, orderly and lawful processes, encounters of CHNV nationals in between POEs are down 99%," the statement said.

But the debate has come back into the spotlight in recent days amid attention on the influx of Haitian migrants into small towns like Springfield, Ohio. Both Vance and Former President Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims that Haitians in Springfield were eating pets of the people that live there.

As that debate has continued, and sparked a slew of memes, it has led to more attention on the use of parole. The administration recently announced that more than 1.3 million migrants have been allowed in using the CBP One app. While critics have pointed out that many of the migrants are not here illegally due to the use of parole, Vance pushed back.

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"What is fundamentally illegal is for Kamala Harris to say we're going to grant parole not on a case by case basis, but to millions of illegal aliens who are coming into this country. That does not magically make them legal," he said.

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Vance also criticized the use of TPS by the administration. The Trump administration attempted to end the use of TPS for a number of nationalities, including Haitians.

Vance described TPS as a "government edict saying that you’re not allowed to deport people anymore."

The remarks show how the debate about immigration has extended beyond the southern border, where numbers have dropped sharply in recent months after an executive order by President Biden that limited arrivals into the U.S. 

Former President Trump said recently that he will "immediately end the migrant invasion of America."

"We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration)," he said.

Fox News' Sophia Compton contributed to this report.