Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, dodged several questions Saturday about whether Trump’s proposed “zero tolerance” immigration policy would lead to family separation.
First, Vance told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that before he orders mass deportations, Trump should “stop the bleeding.”
“You have to stop so many people from coming here illegally, and that means undoing all that [Vice President] Kamala Harris practically did on the first day of the administration,” he added, later saying, “Before we even fix the problem, we have to stop the problem from getting worse.”
Moderator Kristen Welker asked again if the Trump administration’s plan would include separating families, Vance again dodged.
“I think families are being separated right now,” he said, adding that “you’re definitely going to have to deport some people from this country.”
He argued that Trump-led mass deportations would begin with our country’s most violent criminals.
“These people need to be deported,” Vance said. “This is where you focus federal resources.”
Vance blasted Harris again, falsely accusing him of supporting policies that led to the separation of families and children living with criminals.
When President Joe Biden and Harris took office, Biden reversed the Trump-era zero-tolerance policy and created the Family Reunification Task Force, which found that more than 5,000 families were being 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 appeared to have bipartisan buy-in on Capitol Hill.
But GOP support for the bill waned after Trump voiced his disapproval.
While visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona at a campaign event on Thursday, Trump also dodged questions from NBC News about whether his “zero tolerance” proposal would lead to family separation, saying instead that he would “direct regulations” toward multi-status families who might Some members are U.S. citizens and some are illegal .
Trump did not clarify what provisions will be made for those families.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
