Walz, Vance clash over immigration, fentanyl during VP debate

The issue of illegal immigration to the United States through Mexico was a major point of contention between U.S. Senator JD Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz during their vice presidential debate in New York on Tuesday evening.

CBS News journalist Margaret Brennan told Vance, the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee, and Walz, the Democratic Party’s vice president, that “the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border has consistently ranked as one of the most important issues for American voters.”

She specifically asked Vance about Donald Trump’s “mass deportation plan” for undocumented immigrants, but before the 40-year-old senator responded to that question, he decided to go on the attack.

Vance blames Harris for ‘historic immigration crisis’

“Before we talk about deportations, we need to stop the bleeding,” Vance said.

“We have a historic immigration crisis because Kamala Harris started it and said she wanted to undo Donald Trump’s entire border policy. Ninety-four executive orders suspending deportations, decriminalizing illegal aliens and vastly increasing asylum fraud in our system – that has opened the floodgates,” he said.

“And it means that a lot of fentanyl is coming into our country.”

Vance asserted that the U.S. government should “reimplement Donald Trump’s border policies, build the wall (and) reimplement deportations.”

“Which brings me to your point, Margaret, about what do we actually do? So we have 20, 25 million illegal aliens that are here in the country. What do we do with them? I think the first thing we do is start with the criminal migrants,” he said.

“About a million of these people have committed some form of crime in addition to crossing the border illegally. “I think you start with deportations of those people, and then I think you make it harder for illegal aliens to undermine the wages of American workers,” Vance said.

Walz defends the US vice president

The 60-year-old governor of Minnesota began his comments on the immigration crisis by rejecting Vance’s claim that some migrant children in the United States have been “used as mules for drug trafficking.”

“The drug mule (claim) is not true,” Walz said.

Vance then said that he was in fact referring to Mexican drug cartels’ use of children as drug mules.

Walz, meanwhile, pointed out that Harris was California’s attorney general before entering federal politics.

He claimed she is the only person running in the November 5 presidential election “who has prosecuted transnational gangs for human trafficking and drug interventions.”

The Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee accused Trump of obstructing what he described as “the fairest and toughest immigration bill this country has ever seen,” legislation considered by Congress earlier this year.

“It was created by a conservative senator from Oklahoma, James Lankford. … The Border Patrol said, ‘This is what we need.’ … Fifteen hundred new border agents, drug investigation. …Exactly what America wants. But as soon as it got ready to take on this (crisis) and actually tackle it, Donald Trump said, ‘No.’ He told Republicans to vote against it because it created a campaign problem for him,” Walz said.

Walz: ‘Mexico didn’t pay a cent’ for border wall

Walz also took aim at Trump for what he characterized as the former president’s failure to deliver on his promises on immigration.

“Donald Trump had four years. He had four years to do this. And he promised you, America, how easy it would be. I will build you a big, beautiful wall and Mexico will pay for it. Less than 2% of that wall was built and Mexico didn’t pay a cent,” he said.

“But here we are again, nine years after he came down the escalator, dehumanized people and told them what he was going to do. As for a deportation plan, Senator Vance said at one point that it was so unworkable as to be laughable. So that’s where we are.”

Vance: Trump will solve the immigration crisis

Vance’s attacks on Harris on immigration were relentless.

“The only thing (Harris) did when she became vice president, when she became the appointed border czar, was undo 94 of Donald Trump’s executive actions that opened the border,” said Vance, an Ohio senator, former corporate lawyer. and author of a bestselling memoir about “a family (his) and a culture in crisis.”

“This problem is creating enormous problems in the United States of America. Parents unable to afford health care, schools overwhelmed. It has to stop, and it will when Donald Trump is president again,” he said.

Walz was critical of the practice of “blaming migrants for everything” and continued to advocate for passage of the immigration bill that “law enforcement … was asking for.”

Vance claims ‘illegal weapons’ are entering the US from Mexico

CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell asked the VP nominees whether holding parents accountable for gun violence committed by their minor children could “curb mass shootings.”

During his response, Vance said that “the vast majority” of gun violence in the United States “is committed with illegally acquired firearms.”

“And while we’re on that topic, we know that thanks to Kamala Harris’ open border, we’ve seen a huge influx in the number of illegal weapons controlled by the Mexican drug cartel,” he said.

Journalists José Díaz Briseño and Ioan Grillo took to the social media platform X to respond to Vance’s claim.

“In a bit of a tongue twister, JD Vance ultimately suggests that Mexican cartels are the source of firearms in the US, when in reality it is US gun stores that sell them. We have no gun stores in Mexico,” wrote Díaz, a U.S.-based correspondent for the newspaper Reforma.

“I have no interest in this American election and I am deeply concerned about the Mexican drug cartels that I have been covering for 20 years,” Grillo wrote.

“But JD Vance: Cartels don’t smuggle guns into the United States. The American arms market supplies Mexican cartels. I wrote this book about it,” he added, referring to his 2021 book, “Blood Gun Money.”

Closing statements

In his closing statement, Walz said he was “as surprised as anyone” by the “coalition that Kamala Harris has built.”

“From Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift and a whole bunch of people in between. And they don’t all agree on everything, but they are really optimistic people. They believe in a positive future for this country. And one in which our politics can be better than they are now,” he said.

“…Kamala Harris brings us a new path forward. She brings us a politics of joy. She comes up with real solutions for the middle class. And she puts you first,” Walz said.

In his latest remarks, Vance once again blamed Harris for allowing large quantities of illegal fentanyl – a drug made and trafficked by Mexican drug cartels – into the US.

‘I believe that whether you are rich or poor, you should have the money to buy a house. You must be able to live in safe neighborhoods. You cannot allow your communities to be flooded with fentanyl,” he said.

“And that has also become more difficult with Kamala, because of Kamala Harris’ policies,” Vance said.

“Now I’ve been in politics long enough to do what Kamala Harris does when she stands before the American people and says she’s going to work on all these challenges I just mentioned on day one. She has been vice president for three and a half years. Day one was 1,400 days ago. And her policies have exacerbated these problems,” he said.

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