US JD Vance

JD Vance claimed his ancestors built the US with their bare hands, and the internet begged to differ – 15 fact-checks

Oonagh Keating. Updated April 17th, 2025

One of the more disturbing acts of the second Trump regime has been its immigration force ICE snatching people and facilitating their deportation to a prison in El Salvador – without proof of wrongdoing.

On the 15th of March, a Maryland resident of Salvadoran origin with an asylum order, Kilmar Ábrego García, was illegally sent to El Salvador after what US officials admit was an administrative error.

Despite a Supreme Court ruling that he should be brought back to the US, the Trump government has failed to comply because he is now under a foreign jurisdiction – much like it was impossible for the US government to intervene in an active Romanian court case in order to have the Tate brothers brought back to the US.

Oh, wait …

The case has highlighted the lack of due process for recent deportees, and it was against that background that JD Vance launched into a Twitter rant on why the government shouldn’t have to follow *checks notes* the law.

I hate this smug, self-assured bullshit. "I know I'm right, and people must be dumb or immoral to disagree with me." It's an easy way to go through life, because then you never have to think seriously about why your worldview is a justification for the mass invasion of the country my ancestors built with their bare hands.

None of these people can articulate a deportation standard that: 1) would satisfy left-wing critics of the administration's immigration policy; 2) would satisfy their intuitions about what "due process" is required; 3) would be workable given resource constraints; and 4) would permit deportation of most of the illegal immigrants allowed under Joe Biden's administration. They want to nullify the results of a democratic election. It's that simple.

While there were several noteworthy and troubling points about the so-called vice president’s strop, a lot of people picked up on one claim in particular.

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