Stanford University political science professor Michael McFaul, a Hoover Senior Fellow who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, has studied his “whole life how democracies break down,” he writes.
Listening to JD Vance answer a Politico reporter’s question in a campaign rally environment, McFaul recognized he was seeing one of those contributing factors being spun out live by the GOP nominee for Vice President.
“This is how it happens, folks,” McFaul writes, citing Vance’s cavalier characterization of a legal action as, instead, illegal — accusing the Democratic presidential nominee of skirting the law and “waving a magic wand” when it comes to granting legal immigration status to migrants from Haiti.
“Mr. Vance,” McFaul writes, “is blatantly calling a legal action illegal.”
This is just shocking. Mr. Vance is blatantly calling a legal action illegal. I’ve studied my whole life how democracies break down. This is how it happens folks. I hope he really doesn’t believe this. Politicians say a lot of crazy things during elections. I fear he might. https://t.co/7VDfLWFXgi
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) September 18, 2024
Vance insists that he will continue to refer to Haitians who are in the U.S. legally as “illegal aliens,” asserting that only an “illegal” action by Harris legitimized their status, and that therefore he doesn’t need to recognize their legal status.
“The media loves to say that hundreds of thousand of Haitian migrants all across our country are here legally,” Vance says, “and what they mean is that Kamala Harris used two separate programs — mass parole and temporary protective status — she used two programs to wave a wand and say we’re not going to deport those people here.”
Rejecting the so-called “wand wave,” Vance says he doesn’t need to abide by the administration’s action, despite its legality.
McFaul points out that this position signals Vance’s willingness to recognize the rule of law only when that law aligns with his party’s goals — a slippery slope for democracies.
NOTE: Vance is referring to the Biden administration’s 2023 Humanitarian Parole Program, “providing ‘safe and orderly pathways to the United States’ for up to 30,000 nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.” The program allows: “certain people from these four countries who have a sponsor in the U.S. and who pass a background check to come to the U.S. for a period of two years to live and work lawfully.”
Vance also refers to a program with similar aims that extends Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to some of these workers.