Vance insists the White House is not backing down on mass deportation

JD Vancehas insisted the White House is not backing down on its mass deportation campaign despite backlash at Donald Trump’s deadly crackdown in Minneapolis. The Vice President sat down with the Daily Mail for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview in his Washington, DC office, where he doubled down on the deportation drive. Trump’s base expressed fears over the last week that the President was backing off from his election pledge following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minnesota. The President parachuted Border Czar Tom Homan into the Twin Cities to take over from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Homan pledged to ‘draw down’ the number of officers amid negotiations with Democratic Governor Tim Walz.

Asked whether Homan’s comments signaled the White House was in retreat, Vance told the Mail: ‘No it doesn’t at all. We’re not surrendering,’ the VP insisted. ‘We’re not moving back on anything. We’re just trying to actually encourage cooperation so that we get a little bit less chaos.’ Vance’s comments demonstrate an ongoing policy tightrope the Trump administration is attempting to walk ahead of the midterm elections. Daily Mail polling, conducted by JL Partners last week, showed a majority of Americans have turned against ICE and Customs and Border Protection raids and believe their presence in US cities should end. Even 19 percent of Republicans surveyed, nearly one-fifth, agreed with the sentiment.

But the Vice President said local leaders were already beginning to work with Trump’s immigration agents regarding undocumented migrants charged with sexual crimes set to be deported once they are released from county jail. ‘Two weeks ago, the state authorities, the local authorities were saying, we’re not even gonna let you know when this person gets out of prison,’ Vance said. ‘Now they’re saying they will let us know when that person gets out of prison, so that we can deport them and get them out of our country.’ The Vice President, however, noted that future cooperation with local officials will not stop the administration from enforcing their deportation agenda. ‘That’s the kind of cooperation we need to see more of. If we see more of it, I think the chaos will come down,’ Vance said before adding: ‘We’ll continue to enforce our immigration laws.’ ‘There will be less violence on America’s streets, which is ultimately the goal here, to keep people safe.’

Trump has previously threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy troops in Minnesota amid anti-ICE protests and riots. The law of 1807 gives the President the legal authority to send out troops on American soil to quell civil disobedience. It was first invoked by Thomas Jefferson to deal with a plot to create a separate nation in the American West. The act was last used by President George HW Bush in 1992 after he deployed federal troops during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. When asked by the Daily Mail whether Trump’s pledge to send troops into Minnesota was still on the table, Vance declined to say, insisting he did not want to engage in hypotheticals.

‘You’re trying to get me to engage in a lot of hypotheticals … Let’s actually focus on reality and what’s happening on the ground. What we’re doing is trying to draw the chaos down,’ the Vice President replied. The Vice President also endorsed the administration’s move to require body cameras be worn by all federal agents in Minneapolis and said the change would protect law enforcement. Trump recently signaled he would not pull back immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota despite Homan’s prior statement offering to ‘draw down’ agents.