VP Candidates Vance and Walz Debate Immigration
As expected, last night's debate between the two Vice Presidential candidates, touched on immigration. While the debate was relatively civil and policy-oriented, the discussion of immigration got a bit tense at times.
CBS News summarized the discussion on immigration as follows:
"During Tuesday's vice presidential debate, CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent and "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan asked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance about immigration. Ohio Sen. JD Vance claimed immigration policies enacted by Vice President Kamala Harris allowed the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz rebutted Vance and criticized former President Donald Trump for opposing a legislative solution to reforming immigration."
As expected, Walz mentioned Vance's falsehoods about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Vance countered that he was not worried about immigrants eating pets but was worried about the impacts of immigrants on U.S. workers. Vance blamed undocumented immigrants for rising housing prices. I must admit that I smiled when Vance talked about the Biden administration as "opening the floodgates" to immigrants, which is a title to one of my books. To be fair, we have very different views about immigration. But I worried when Vance deflected a question by blaming Kamala Harris for separating migrant families and refused to condemn the family separation policy pursued by Donald Trump as President.
It seems fair to say that the immigration issue got the candidates talking. Ahead of the debate, CBS News had reserved the right to turn off microphones if necessary. The moderators exercised that right during the tense exchange between Vance and the moderators on immigration and muted Vance's microphone.