The Springfield pet-eating hoax was not the only immigration lie Vance spouted tonight

The racist rumors astir Haitian migrants successful Springfield, Ohio came up erstwhile again astatine tonight’s vice statesmanlike statement betwixt Governor Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance (R-OH). 

“Governor Walz brought up the assemblage of Springfield, and he’s precise disquieted astir the things that I’ve said,” Vance said aft his hostile criticized him for saying he’s consenting to “create stories” astir migrants to gully attraction to Americans who suffering. Vance past listed problems successful Springfield — including overcrowded schools and rising location prices — which helium claimed are happening “because we brought successful millions of amerciable immigrants who are competing with Americans.” When a moderator clarified that members of Springfield’s Haitian assemblage are mostly are surviving successful the US legally nether a argumentation called Temporary Protected Status, Vance scolded her for breaking the no-fact-checking regularisation — and attempted to close the grounds with a caller litany of lies nary 1 connected signifier bothered to challenge.

“The rules were that you weren’t going to fact-check me, and since you’re fact-checking me, I deliberation it’s important to accidental what’s really going on,” Vance said earlier going connected to picture respective things that are not really going on. “There’s an exertion called the CBP One app, wherever you tin spell connected arsenic an amerciable migrant, use for asylum and parole, and beryllium granted ineligible presumption astatine the question of a Kamala Harris unfastened borderline wand,” helium continued.

CBP One is simply a existent app: it launched successful October 2020, nether erstwhile President Trump’s administration, and was initially utilized to facilitate cross-border processing astatine ports of entry. CBP One has expanded importantly nether President Joe Biden’s administration, and Vance is close that migrants tin usage the app to commencement the parole process and docket appointments astatine ports of introduction wherever they tin inquire for asylum.

But alternatively of being granted contiguous status, arsenic Vance claimed, migrants who usage CBP One to inquire for asylum appointments are simply starting the archetypal measurement successful a ineligible process that tin instrumentality months oregon years — and whitethorn yet effect successful a deportation order. These appointments are hard to travel by. CBP lone takes 1,450 per time crossed the full borderline (up from 1,000 erstwhile the app was archetypal rolled retired for asylum seekers). Though much than 5 cardinal assignment requests were been made connected CBP One betwixt January 2023 and February of this year, conscionable 547,000 migrants person been capable to get 1 connected the books, according to CBP data. There are reports of migrants waiting up to six months to get an appointment, often successful unsafe cities on the US-Mexico border. (When the app archetypal started taking asylum appointments, migrants could lone petition them from bluish Mexico. The app’s scope has since expanded to screen astir of the country, but it’s inactive intolerable to petition an assignment from elsewhere successful the world.)

The app isn’t a convenient enactment for migrants and asylum seekers. Thanks to a policy Biden implemented successful 2023, it’s the only avenue for astir radical who privation to question extortion successful the US. The “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways Final Rule” denies asylum to anyone who enters the US from Mexico “without authorization” — i.e., without archetypal requesting an assignment — aft passing done different state en way to the US. For example, idiosyncratic from Guatemala who traveled to Mexico earlier crossing the borderline would beryllium denied asylum nether the caller regularisation unless they scheduled an assignment connected the app. (There are a fewer further exceptions, including for radical who were denied asylum successful a 3rd state connected their mode to the US.) Migrant advocates person called the Lawful Pathways regularisation an asylum ban.

Among Vance’s different lies and misleading statements, immoderate of which were made astatine antithetic points successful the debate, were improbable claims astir migrant schoolhouse shooters and claims that Harris was liable for “94 enforcement orders” that suspended deportations, decriminalized undocumented immigrants, and “massively” accrued asylum fraud. Biden — not Harris — did so effort to instrumentality a 100-day moratorium connected deportations successful 2021 but was prohibited from doing truthful by a national judge. It’s existent that Biden and Harris promised to undo Trump’s migration policies and physique a much inclusive system, and they did springiness that a changeable for a fewer months, lone to wantonness the origin aft ineligible challenges and Republican accusations of having opened the border. 

Biden is really connected par with Trump’s deportation numbers frankincense far: helium oversaw 1.1 cardinal deportations betwixt the 2021 fiscal twelvemonth and February 2024, according to national information analyzed by theMigration Policy Institute. In summation to these deportations, overmuch of which occurred astatine the US-Mexico border, the Biden medication carried retired astir 3 cardinal “expulsions” of migrants astatine the confederate borderline nether a now-defunct argumentation called Title 42, which fto Customs and Border Protection region migrants from the state without a proceeding connected nationalist wellness grounds. 

As Walz pointed retired connected the statement stage, Biden and Harris are present backing 1 of the astir restrictive borderline bills successful decades — but that hasn’t stopped Trump, Vance, and different Republicans from accusing them of supporting alleged “open borders” policies. Vance claimed that Harris “let successful fentanyl into our communities astatine grounds levels,” additionally alleging that nether Biden and Harris, the Department of Homeland Security has mislaid 320,000 migrant children, immoderate of whom are “being utilized arsenic cause trafficking mules.”

But astir drugs are smuggled through ports of entry, not betwixt them, which is wherefore CBP has spent tens of millions of dollars connected AI-enabled machines that scan vehicles for fentanyl and different drugs earlier they participate the US. The overwhelming bulk of fentanyl CBP seizes astatine the borderline isn’t smuggled by migrants but alternatively by American citizens — and sometimes the Americans progressive successful cause trafficking astatine the borderline are CBP agents themselves.

As for kid cause mules and mislaid migrant children, there’s nary denying that the transgression syndicates that postulation drugs crossed the borderline aren’t besides progressive successful quality smuggling, but they’re usually charging migrants extortionate amounts of money. And there’s nary credible grounds that the authorities has mislaid 320,000 migrant children. Vance seems to beryllium referring to a study by a national oversight bureau that says 32,000 migrant children who arrived astatine the borderline unaccompanied didn’t amusement up to their tribunal hearings, portion different 291,000 unaccompanied children had yet to get their tribunal notices. 

All told, adjacent if CBS’s moderators had been fact-checking the debate, Vance’s lies astir the migration strategy were excessively numerous to debunk connected stage. There was seemingly a QR codification connected screen directing viewers to live fact-checking connected CBS News’s website. Whether anyone really made usage of it is debatable.