During a recent campaign stop in Detroit, Michigan, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance was praised for his response to a reporter’s question about comments regarding the response to Hurricane Helene. They pressed Vance on comments he and former President Donald Trump have made, suggesting that much-needed FEMA aid has gone to illegal immigrants.
As Hurricane Helene has destroyed large portions of the East Coast, Americans have voiced substantial criticism toward the Biden-Harris administration over what many have described as a slow and inefficient response to the devastation. Moreover, there is concern over resources being strained from the unprecedented illegal immigration that has occurred under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
The reporter asked Vance, “Uh, thank you, Senator, historian with CBS News, you said in an interview with Newsmax yesterday that…that FEMA was disaster relief was being used to fund migrant to focus on migrants rather.” As he introduced the question, the reporter received several boos from the crowd, a common reaction toward hostile questions at recent Trump-Vance campaign events. “Donald Trump also said untruth social that most, if not all, of the money that FEMA spent is on migrants. FEMA officials say that’s just not true. What evidence do you guys have?” he asked.
In his response, Vance illustrated that his true concern is on the “focus” of the government given the influx of illegal immigrants. “My point is about the focus of our current administration, and if you use resources, but most importantly, if you put people on the task of dealing, let’s say, with a massive influx of illegal immigration, then they’re going to be distracted from doing their core job of keeping Americans safe in response to a disaster each of us.”
Continuing, the Ohio senator explained how the levels of illegal immigration could stretch the government thin. “This is true of me. It’s true of everybody in the world. We only got so much time to focus, and there’s only so much time in the day. And if you take FEMA and you turn it into an agency that resettles a legal immigrant that’s going to take their focus away from keeping people safe after a hurricane. That’s basic human reality. And I think there’s no way around it,” he said.
Addressing the fact-checks from media outlets regarding his and former President Trump’s statement, Vance said, “Now, now what the. fact checkers say and we’ll sort of you know, we’ll try to be as fair to the other side as possible. My friends what the fact checkers will say as well. There’s a bucket of money that goes to illegal immigrants and that’s a different bucket of money that goes to disaster relief. Well, I’m sure the Biden administration has never moved money from one bucket to the other.
However, Vance asserted that more financial resources must be allocated toward American citizens’ disaster relief budgets. “In three and a half years, we know that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are more than willing to move money from one bucket to another if it suits their purpose, they ought to be moving money to the bucket that supports American citizens in the wake of these terrible storms. That’s what I would like them to do,” Trump’s running mate said.
Watch the clip from the rally below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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