JD Vance leaves NYT reporter stunned with his simple solution for the migrant crisis
JD Vance left a New York Times reporter stunned by dismantling the argument that illegal immigrants are essential to the American economy.
The senator argued that a simple solution to the migrant crisis would be to hire 7 million male Americans who have left the labor market, rather than relying on the annual influx of about 2 million undocumented migrants.
Vance says he doesn’t think America needs to rely on cheap immigrant labor and advocated Donald Trump’s proposal to deport all undocumented people living in the U.S. illegally.
His argument set social media ablaze when The Times podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro was mocked for saying that if illegal immigrants are deported, the housing crisis will worsen and the working-class population will cease to function.
Some MAGA accounts were jealous of the vice presidential candidate for his argument.
Senator JD Vance was praised on social media for pushing back on a New York Times reporter who claimed America must rely on cheap immigrant construction workers to solve the housing crisis.
“JD Vance leaves NYT reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro speechless,” one X user wrote.
Another wrote of Vance: “Watch him contradict this NYT journalist with facts, humor and charisma. It’s great to see a political powerhouse coming into its own before our eyes.”
Vance argues that more Americans would work in jobs like construction if they were paid a living wage — but that big companies don’t want to do that because they can import cheap labor from Central America through undocumented workers.
Garcia-Navarro said in the podcast interview, “The reason there is a housing crisis is because not enough houses have been built.”
“And that we have 25 million people who shouldn’t be here,” Vance responded, adding, “I think it’s both.”
“But about a third of the construction workforce in this country is Hispanic,” she noted. ‘A large proportion of them have no papers.’
“So how do you propose to build all the housing we need in this country by removing all the people who work in construction?” she asked.
“I think this is a fair question because we know that in the 1960s, when we had very low levels of illegal immigration, Americans weren’t buying houses and they weren’t building houses. But of course they did. And of course I’m being sarcastic, serving Lulu.’
“The assumption that because a large number of homebuilders are now using undocumented labor that this is the only way to build homes, I think again betrays a fundamental –” he said, but was interrupted.
“The need is much greater,” the NY emphasized. “I mean, I’m not advocating illegal immigration. I ask how you would deal with the knock-on effect of your proposal to remove millions of people working in a crucial part of the economy.”
Vance pointed to unemployed Americans who could be employed to work in construction or other blue-collar jobs, but are not included because of the wages companies can pay to undocumented workers.
“This is one of the really crazy things that I think illegal immigration does to our society because it puts us in the mindset that we can only build houses with illegal immigrants and that we have seven million only men – not even women – only men who have completely disappeared from the workforce,” the VP candidate said.
‘People say: Americans won’t do those jobs. Americans won’t do those jobs for sub-table-top wages, they won’t do those jobs for non-livable wages. But people will do that work. They will just do those jobs for a certain wage.”
The unemployment rate of 4.1 percent does not include those who drop out of labor force participation. According to Vance, these are the people most likely to work construction jobs but feel disenfranchised by the American workforce.
If a Trump-Vance administration enters the White House next year, the team has said it would work to remove all illegal and undocumented immigrants living in the US.
Vance says this would help ease the housing crisis because 25 million illegal immigrants would no longer take away homes from Americans in need of shelter.
“We can’t have an entire American business community that gives up American workers and then imports millions of illegal workers,” Vane said. “That’s what we have because of Kamala Harris’ border policy.”
“I think it’s one of the biggest causes of inequality,” he added. “It’s one of the biggest reasons why millions of people have left the workforce. Why try to get an American citizen back into a good job when you can just import someone from Central America who will work under the table for pitiful wages? It is a shame and has led to the eradication of the American middle class.”