Trump’s ICE Goons Detained a 5-Year-Old. Then JD Vance Made It Worse.

This has gotten scandalously little attention, but ICE has been seeking to deport thousands of people awaiting asylum hearings in the United States to third countries that will take them. This entails asking immigration judges to void asylum applications without ever passing substantive judgment on their merits. When Vance calls this father an “illegal alien,” it appears to reflect the broader position that people awaiting asylum adjudication should be removed before their case receives a verdict.

Vance wants to appear morally grounded in discussing this 5-year-old child. But the administration’s position—that asylum-seekers’ presence here is essentially illegitimate and that their claims can be summarily voided—should offend anyone’s sense of fairness. Even Vance’s sense of fairness, if he has any left after outsourcing it to the most amoral, corrupt, venal public figure in modern memory.

For one thing, many of these people might legitimately merit asylum here, but we’ll never know either way due to redirection of their claims. For another, many came here legally before claiming asylum: Though precise numbers are unavailable, that class surely includes large numbers who came through the Joe Biden–era CBP One app, since terminated by Trump, which allowed migrants to legally enter and make appointments to apply for asylum or seek other legal protections.