Vice President JD Vance warned that America’s social fabric has been put in jeopardy by "too much immigration too quickly," adding it is undermining the Trump administration’s goal of preserving a unified nation.
President Donald Trump has emphasized border security and the mass deportation of illegal immigrants since starting his second term. The administration’s efforts have faced resistance, with U.S. district courts thwarting attempts at some deportations.
"The point that I’ve tried to make is I think a lot about this question of social cohesion in the United States," Vance said in Rome on Monday during an interview on The New York Times’ "Interesting Times" podcast. Vance, a Catholic, was in Rome for Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural Mass.
"I think about how we form the kind of society again where people can raise families, where people join institutions together," Vance said. "And I do think that those who care about what might be called the common good, they sometimes under weigh how destructive immigration at the levels and at the pace that we’ve seen over the last few years is to the common good.
"I really do think that social solidarity is destroyed when you have too much migration too quickly. That’s not because I hate the migrants or I’m motivated by grievance.
"That’s because I’m trying to preserve something in my own country where we are a unified nation. And I don’t think that can happen if you have too much immigration too quickly."
Under the Biden administration, the foreign-born population in the U.S. hit a record of nearly 52 million, or roughly 15.5% of the population, Breitbart reported in December. During eight years of the Obama administration, the foreign-born population grew by about 6.4 million, which was considered a record at the time.
Vance estimated between 12 million and 20 million people entered the U.S. illegally under the Biden administration, adding "I actually think the number is much closer to 20 million than to 12 million."
"But look, whether it’s 12 million or whether it’s 20 million, it’s a lot," Vance said. "That’s a lot of work ahead of us."
Vance said there are easy and difficult paths to dealing with immigration. The easier road is "to have the actual law enforcement infrastructure to make this possible."
"It requires more beds at deportation facilities," he said. "It just requires more of the basic nuts and bolts of how you run a law enforcement regime in the context of deportation. And that’s one of the main things in the big, beautiful bill that is moving through Congress right now: more money for immigration enforcement."
Vance said the difficult road involves the judicial branch abiding by legislative standards regarding illegal immigrants.
"Illegal immigrants, by virtue of being in the United States, are entitled to some due process," Vance said. "But the amount of process that is due, how you enforce those legislative standards, and how you actually bring them to bear is very much an open question.
"I worry that unless the Supreme Court steps in here, or unless the district courts exercise a little bit more discretion, we are running into a real conflict between two important principles in the United States.
"Principle 1, of course, is that courts interpret the law. Principle 2 is that the American people decide how they’re governed.
"You cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement and the courts tell the American people they’re not allowed to have what they voted for. That’s where we are right now."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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