Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Thursday that a Trump-Vance administration would use “every law enforcement tool” at its disposal to “get illegal immigration under control” — but he doesn’t know if the National Guard would be necessary to conduct the mass deportations former President Donald Trump has promised.
Vance said he likens questions about how the Trump administration would deport millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States to taking bites out of a large sandwich. In the analogy, Vance said the administration would tackle the problem one step at a time.
“You say, let’s start with the first million who are the most violent criminals, who are the most aggressive. Get them out of here. First, prioritize them, and then you see where you are, and you keep on taking bites of the problem until you get illegal immigration to a serviceable point,” he said.
The first approach before deportations, Vance said, is to get “illegal immigration as close to zero as physically possible.”
“I don’t know that you need to use the National Guard, but we are going to use every law enforcement tool at our disposal to get illegal immigration under control,” Vance said.
Last weekend, Vance told ABC that mass deportations should take a “sequential approach” with “what’s achievable,” suggesting 1 million people and moving from there.