Illegal Border Crossings Today:

Former President Donald Trump Picks Senator JD Vance as Running Mate

Senator J.D. Vance in front of the Capitol

FAIR Take | July 2024

Last Monday, after weeks of speculation, former president Donald Trump announced that Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio) will be his running mate in the 2024 presidential election.  JD Vance is currently serving in his first term in the U.S. Senate, where he has taken a strong stance on immigration during this brief tenure.

Sen. Vance rapidly ascended to national prominence over the course of just a few years.  He developed a national profile after his personal memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, became a bestseller and was adapted into a film. Before that, after serving in the Iraq War as a Marine, he graduated from Yale Law School, going on to work in venture capitalism. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, where he sits on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation; and the Special Committee on Aging.

During his tenure on Capitol Hill, Sen. Vance has consistently voted in favor of bills backed by FAIR.  Earlier this year, he voted in favor of holding a full trial in the Senate to consider articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Vance also voted against the  Senate “border security” bill, twice, and against several appropriations packages that failed to secure our borders. Last year, he voted in favor of H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, when offered as an amendment in the Senate, and for S.J. Res. 18, a joint resolution that would have overturned the Biden Administration’s public charge regulation.

He has also proven active in leading legislation. Some notable examples of legislation that Vance has introduced include:

  • No Obamacare For Illegal Aliens Act, a bill to change the definition of “lawfully present” to ensure that DACA beneficiaries will not be eligible for health insurance through the Affordable Care Exchange and to prohibit federal taxes from going to health insurance for illegal aliens.
  • Timely Departure Act, a bill that would establish a visa bond system that requires individuals with nonimmigrant visas to pay a deposit between $5,000 and $15,000 before being granted admission into the United States. Under his bill, if the alien departs the country on time, the money is returned. However, if an alien fails to depart on time, the bond is forfeited and redirected to fund alien detention facilities and transportation of aliens ordered removed from the United States.
  • Withholding Illegal Revenue Entering Drug Markets (WIRED) Act, a bill that would impose a 10 percent fee on remittance transfers (money transferred outside the U.S.) and allocate that money to a Border Enforcement Trust Fund.

Vance has also introduced legislation to bar the federal government from dismantling border fencing constructed by state governments; block sanctuary cities from receiving federal housing grants; and prohibit universities that hire illegal aliens from receiving federal funding.

Senator Vance has also proven an outspoken for the American worker. He has pointed out the detrimental impact illegal immigration has had on the American worker by driving down wages and replacing American workers with cheap foreign labor, eradicating the American Dream and decimating the middle class. In a March 2024 interview with Fox News, Sen. Vance blamed the Biden Administration’s policies for making the situation worse:  “All net job creation …under the Biden administration has gone to the foreign born.”

Vance followed that interview by sending a letter, co-authored by Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), to the Department of Justice (DOJ), asking whether it “is faithfully carrying out its statutory duty to protect American workers from employment practices that privilege asylum seekers, parolees, and other aliens over American citizens.” Last month, he joined a bipartisan bill that would require all employers to use E-Verify to confirm employees’ eligibility to work.

Sen. Vance has also worked to raise awareness of the effects of illegal immigration on the housing market.  In a Senate Banking hearing last May, Vance said:  “I want to focus on one of the under-discussed components of the housing crisis in our country today, and that is its connection to mass illegal immigration…We cannot, as a country, absorb 10 million people and still provide high quality housing to the rest of our citizens. The math doesn’t work. The numbers don’t make sense. The increase in housing prices and rents is clear for all to see.”

Finally, Vance has taken an active approach to conducting congressional oversight of federal agencies and holding the Biden Administration accountable. Some noteworthy oversight measures that Sen. Vance has led include:

  • A bicameral letter to Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas pushing back against the Biden Administration’s abuse of the parole statute by creating the parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans;
  • A letter joined by all Senate Republicans on the Banking Committee to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra urging them to stop efforts to limit financial institutions from considering immigration status when granting loans;
  • A letter with Senate Minority Whip John Thune demanding answers on reports that the administration terminated more than 350,000 pending asylum cases; and
  • A letter to President Biden warning that providing Palestinians with Deferred Enforced Departure or Temporary Protected Status following the October 7 terrorist attack would create a “magnet for migration.”

Illegal immigration remains one of the top issues to Americans, from illegal alien crime to national security threats to jobs lost to illegal alien workers. In the coming weeks and months, FAIR will continue to educate our members on immigration policies of candidates from across the spectrum.

To see Vance’s comments on immigration watch the video below: