Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday. At the event, he continued to criticize migrants from Haiti, saying those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or other authorized immigration status are “illegal aliens” who should be deported.

Karl B DeBlaker/AP

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Karl B DeBlaker/AP

RALEIGH, N.C. — Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance said Wednesday that Haitian migrants with legal immigration status are “illegal aliens” who have been unlawfully protected from deportation, suggesting that would change if Trump wins the election.

Immigration is a top issue for Republicans, and one of Trump’s hallmark campaign promises is to enact the “largest-ever deportation” in American history on day one of his presidency if he’s elected.

Asked what the Trump administration would do about migrants that are already in the country legally after a speech in Raleigh Wednesday, Vance suggested that those migrants were granted protection unlawfully and attacked Vice President Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, over the current administration’s use of mass parole and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people that arrive from specific countries.

“What is fundamentally illegal is for Kamala Harris to say we’re going to grant parole, not on a case by case basis, but to millions of illegal aliens who are coming to this country,” Vance said. “That does not magically make them legal because Kamala Harris waved the amnesty wand. That makes her border policy a disgrace, and I’m still going to call people illegal aliens.”

The Biden administration recently extended the temporary legal protected status for unauthorized migrants from Haiti living in the U.S. through Feb. 3, 2026, a designation that protects against deportation but does not confer permanent legal status. While Vance speaks about Haiti specifically, nationals from more than a dozen other countries including Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan can also be awarded TPS.

The community of Springfield, Ohio, a mid sized city between Dayton and Columbus, has been roiled by bomb threats, evacuations and harassment towards its residents after Vance, Trump and other Republicans spread lies that Haitian immigrants there were stealing pets and eating them, among other false claims

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Vance’s staff reached out to the Springfield city manager to inquire about the veracity of the provocative claims, learned those claims were false and shared them anyway.

“He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” City Manager Bryan Heck told the outlet. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”

The harassment and attention reached a fever pitch after Trump mentioned Springfield on the presidential debate stage last week, as part of the Republican push to highlight the Biden administration’s unpopularity in its handling of illegal immigration and border security issues.

In North Carolina, Vance continued to play the role of Trump campaign attack dog, saying the “disgraceful” stance of the Biden-Harris administration on immigration has been, “we’re going to let in millions of illegal aliens to make your housing costs higher, to make your hospitals overwhelmed, to make your local schools impossible for your children to learn in.”

“Who consented?” Vance asked. “Who in this room, who in this country consented to allowing millions of aliens to come into this country unchecked, unvetted? None of us did.”

Vance also deflected a question about how the administration would grapple with the economic aftermath of mass deportations that would disproportionately affect industries like agriculture and construction that rely on migrant labor.

“Well, first of all, if you talk to farmers, farmers are as upset about the open borders as almost anybody else,” he said. “So I think farmers, and certainly I reject the idea that the only way to have a productive farm economy is to allow 25 million legal aliens into this country, it doesn’t make enough sense.”