During the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night, CBS moderators censored Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance by cutting off his microphone.
This happened while Vance was trying to correct the CBS anchors about how the immigration process works.
The conversation that was happening was when Vance was trying to defend controversial comments he made earlier in the summer regarding Haitian migrants who have made their way to Springfield, Ohio.
Vance said that illegal immigrants basically take jobs from Americans, occupy a lot of housing and overwhelm many hospitals, which ultimately leaves many Americans “in the lurch.”
While Vance was talking, the anchors broke the network’s own rules for the debate, which said they wouldn’t fact-check the candidates while the debate was going on. Instead, they informed Vance that the Haitian migrants in Springfield had legal status in the U.S.
Vance then tried to respond by explaining the complicated U.S. immigration process that allowed the Haitian migrants to be in America legally, but CBS then cut off his microphone as well as that of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who is his Democratic counterpart.
Anchor Margaret Brennan then said:
“The audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut.”
Vance and GOP nominee Donald Trump have consistently focused on immigration on the campaign trail. They have said multiple times that if they were elected, they would target the estimated 1 million illegal immigrants for a mass deportation.
Then, they’d tighten up enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in an attempt to cut off jobs that many illegal immigrants have that allow them to stay in America. As Vance has said:
“A lot of people will go home.”
Walz, by contrast, said during the debate that Trump was “dehumanizing” illegal immigrants. He said that he and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris would sign bills that would tighten border asylum claims.
The Minnesota governor then attacked Vance for comments he has made about the Haitian migrants, which have led to many people believing that they have been stealing residents’ pets and eating them.
The CBS anchors who were moderating this week’s debate chimed in to say that the Haitian migrants were allowed to be in the country because they had what is called Temporary Protected Status.
While that statement is true, it also overlooks the obvious fact that the migrants came into the U.S. illegally in the first place. They didn’t have a legal visa or any other permission to enter America.
It’s only because of the lax immigration enforcement policies put forth by the Biden administration that allowed these Haitian migrants to stay in the country at all.
Eventually, the Biden White House granted these Haitians Temporary Protected Status, which essentially is an amnesty on deportation for a period of time. It gives these migrants legal status to be in the U.S. tentatively, but it falls short of being a legal visa that would grant them a longer stay here.
