AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Immigration and the border are likely to be big topics in the vice presidential debate Tuesday night. The rhetoric's been heated, but might it be of substance when Republican Senator JD Vance and Democratic Governor Tim Walz meet? That's one question for NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd. Jasmine, welcome.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: Hi.
RASCOE: Let's start there. Might we actually hear some interactions that are substantive on immigration from Vance and Walz Tuesday night?
GARSD: That's so hopeful of you.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
GARSD: I think the key word is substance. Based on the last presidential candidate debate, we saw very little real substance in terms of policy and how to enact campaign promises on both sides. In the last debate, we heard former President Donald Trump repeating false claims about Haitian migrants in Ohio eating people's pets. And then when it came to being asked about a concrete issue, a real issue, how would you enact these mass deportations that you are promising? It was a quick, one sentence answer - with local police. There was this surprising lack of real policy content for viewers to hold onto.
RASCOE: It's interesting that you're going to have these two Midwestern politicians debating about the border and immigration. What do you make of that?
GARSD: I think it's so significant. First of all, you know, Vance is positioning himself as Trump's successor. You can see it in that he's really aggressively repeating Trump's stance on immigration and even dialing it up further with stuff like the pet-eating rumors. Both Vance and Walz represent very different stances on immigration. Vance represents the stance that it's a huge problem and that it's threatening the very existence of America as we know it. And Walz has enacted law in which he seems to be open to more bipartisan legislation on immigration. I think they're both very much responding to the reality that Democrats are vulnerable on the issue of immigration. Polls show that voters see immigration as a weakness for the Harris campaign, and I think both candidates are really reacting to that.
RASCOE: What else will you be listening for when it comes to immigration?
GARSD: Well, Vance is possibly going to bring up the issue of American jobs being taken by migrants, which economists have debunked. He also will very likely bring up the very real strains on cities and towns that have received large influxes of migrants. I also am going to be bracing for more misinformation. The presidential candidate debate - we saw this. We saw this doubling down on false claims by former President Trump, claims about how Vice President Harris is the border czar for the Biden administration - she was not. And also, we've been hearing from both sides discussion of fentanyl. Data shows fentanyl is overwhelmingly brought into the U.S. through legal ports of entry by U.S. citizens. Now, one thing that I'm especially going to be looking out is for the false claim that undocumented immigrants are going to be voting and that there could be voter fraud. To be clear, experts have been studying this for years. It rarely happens that an undocumented immigrant votes. But we're seeing this claim bubbling up from the Republican Party, and election analysts have raised the alarm about those false claims. So I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for that.
RASCOE: NPR's Jasmine Garsd covers immigration for NPR. Thank you so much for joining us.
GARSD: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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