Asian American Democrats push back on Vance immigration claims

By Randall Yip, Executive Editor

Asian American democratic leaders reacted with outrage to some of the claims Sen JD Vance (R- OH) made about immigration during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate.

Vance blamed everything from the opioid crisis to the nation’s affordable housing shortage on “illegal aliens.”

“In Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes,” Vance said.

That brought a retort from Rep Judy Chu (D-CA), the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus after the debate.

“There is no evidence at all that undocumented persons are taking up housing slots in America and instead it’s another xenophobic attempt to say that so called illegal aliens are the cause of everything. Thankfully though Walz talked about the $25,000 downpayment on mortgages,” a federal subsidy Vice President Kamala Harris has proposed to make homes more affordable for the average American

Hawaii’s Lt Governor Sylvia Luke immigrated to America when she was 9 and said that “it saddens me that a nation built on the backs of immigrants could have a leader who has so much hatred for certain populations in this country.

“The contrast is stark,” Luke said. “The difference in values. The difference in conversation is so vastly different. The Republicans continue to talk about divisive things, blaming immigrants, blaming all the other things that could go wrong. Blaming some of society’s ills on everybody else as opposed to taking responsibility to really fix what is going on and coming together to solve real issues.”