JD Vance Just Had To Get A Little Mansplaining In

'Thank you for explaining the legal process.'

Oct 02, 2024

Although JD Vance was clearly trying to be on his best behavior last night, certainly trying to avoid saying anything weird about house pets, he did get a little mansplain-y when moderators Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell dared “clarify” that the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are there legally, after Vance claimed that American citizens can’t buy houses there because “we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.”

“Just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status,” Brennan noted. She could have “fact-checked” the absurd idea that Haitian refugees are buying up all of the real estate in Springfield, Ohio, or explained that a recent investigation found that landlords, actually, were to blame for the rising costs of housing in the area, not the Haitians, who frequently overpay for substandard housing. But she didn’t.

Of course, even that little correction was too much for JD Vance, who will not be spoken to that way by a woman.

“Margaret,” he said, clearly exasperated. “The rules were that you guys weren't going to fact check, and since you're fact checking me, I think it's important to say what's actually going on. So there's an application called the CBP One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. That is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for 10 years.”

Hold on, I’ve got a GIF for that!

Having absolutely none of that, the moderators cut Vance’s mic and Brennan curtly said “thank you for explaining the legal process” every time he tried to open his mouth again.

Because guess what? JD Vance opposing these people being here, or not liking the way they are allowed to legally reside in the United States, does not actually change the fact that the Haitian immigrants are here legally. Which is what anti-immigrant people like the Republicans claim they want; they claim they just don’t like illegal immigration, and would have no problem if everyone came in the “right” way. It is all a giant lie!

Now, there are problems with the CBP One app (which launched in 2020, while Donald Trump was in office), but not the ones JD Vance takes issue with, largely because those problems are imaginary.

Amnesty International has criticized the idea of a mobile app being the only pathway towards obtaining asylum when many people do not have access to that technology; the fact that appointments are given out rather arbitrarily (applicants must request an appointment every day until they finally get one); that those applying often wait for months in dangerous conditions for an appointment and interview that can only be done at an official point of entry; as well as the amount of data collection that goes into all of it.

This doesn’t mean that it’s all bad, mind you, just that it does need some adjustments and that there needs to be more than just that one pathway to asylum. Also that those problems are the exact opposite of the problems JD Vance imagineered.

It’s not remotely easy to obtain asylum in America, by the way. It’s an incredibly complicated process and many of those who should qualify don’t end up getting it because they can’t afford a lawyer to help them through that. We also have a backlog of about 2 million asylum applications, so people certainly do have to wait years before obtaining it. As Tim Walz explained, people are waiting up to seven years to get their claims approved.

There is no magic wand involved, I can tell you that much. You cannot apply for asylum on the CBP One app, you cannot apply for parole or be granted legal status. All CBP One can get you is an appointment that could potentially lead to an interview to apply for asylum, and it could take up to six months to get one.

That being said, the CBP One app has jack shit to do with why there are Haitians in Springfield. Haitians have Temporary Protected Status — a status that we grant to people escaping certain designated countries due to:

Ongoing armed conflict (such as civil war)
An environmental disaster (such as earthquake or hurricane), or an epidemic
Other extraordinary and temporary conditions

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These countries currently include Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Yemen. People escaping those countries can come here, temporarily, until whatever issue that brought them here is over and it is safe for them to return home. Currently, the Haitians that are here have had their TPS extended through 2026.

It is not a pathway to citizenship or an asylum claim or anything like that, though those who come here that way are allowed to apply for those things.

It’s not hard to look these things up. I’m sure that JD Vance is capable of it. In fact, I’m pretty sure he already knows all of this and is just counting on the fact that the people who are voting for him and Donald Trump do not.

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