J.D. Vance Is Now Openly Arguing Immigration Is Bad for America

J.D. Vance is attacking immigration as bad for economic prosperity in the United States.

In an interview on CNBC Thursday morning, the Republican vice presidential nominee said that “if the path to prosperity was flooding your nation with low-wage immigrants, then Springfield, Ohio, would be the most prosperous city in the world.”

“America would be the most prosperous country in the world, because Kamala Harris has flooded the country with 25 million illegal aliens,” Vance continued, citing greatly exaggerated numbers. He went on to blame inflation and lower take-home pay on a “massive influx of illegal labor.”

JD Vance on CNBC says that if immigration was the path to prosperity, then "America would be the most prosperous country in the world." (Who wants to tell him ... ) pic.twitter.com/XY9RDUlvjo

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 12, 2024

Vance’s point neatly sums up Republican thinking about immigration, particularly in the MAGA movement. However, Vance’s conclusions are wrong. For example, in Springfield, business owners like Jamie McGregor, the CEO of the town’s McGregor Metal plant, credit Haitian immigrants with helping to fill a labor shortage.

“I mean, the fact of the matter is, without the Haitian associates that we have, we had trouble filling these positions,” McGregor told NPR in August about a need in his factory that Haitian workers helped to fill.

Also, earlier this week, Vance complained that Haitian immigrants were driving housing prices up in Springfield. This is actually an indication that the economy in the town is improving. As NPR reported, in the years prior to Haitian immigrants’ arrival in Springfield, the town’s population and wealth were dropping as the auto industry, once a major local employer, was declining. An increase in housing prices would indicate a reversal in fortunes.

As far as the stature of the United States, it is the most prosperous country in the world, with the highest gross domestic product, even per capita. Economic experts say that immigration as a whole is a check on inflation and helps job growth as well. And immigrants, even the undocumented, tend to contribute more in taxes than they pay—with undocumented immigrants being ineligible for most, if not all, federal welfare programs.

Vance is parroting Republican orthodoxy on immigrants being at the root of economic difficulty for native-born Americans. And his ideas seem to be influenced by the right’s racist ideas of an immigrant invasion taking over the U.S. If Vance really thinks immigration is bad for the country, he should talk to his wife, Usha, daughter of two Indian immigrants.