When it comes to immigration enforcement, conservatives and liberals often seem to be talking about two different countries.
Vice President J.D. Vance ran into that divide Tuesday during an appearance on ABC’s “The View.” The exchange was tense at times, but Vance stayed measured as the show’s co-hosts pressed him with familiar criticisms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Co-host Sarah Haines began by saying she understands the argument for national borders.
“I believe, as a Christian, I can tell my kids why it’s important to have borders. I get that,” Haines said in a clip posted to X.
But she said it becomes harder to explain enforcement actions when people appear to be taken from their homes or sent to detention despite not being violent criminals.
After the audience applauded, Haines went further, drawing a connection between anti-immigrant rhetoric and language associated with the Holocaust.
Vance was on the show in part to discuss his book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith.” Co-host Ana Navarro used the book as a way into the immigration debate, pointing to Vance’s writing about the moral trade-offs involved in supporting strict migration policies while still refusing to dehumanize people.
Navarro then raised conditions in immigration detention.
Haines then whines to Vance about having to explain to her kids why illegal immigrants are being deported.
Navarro then pounces and spews lies that children are being tortured, starved, and made ill in one ICE facility.
Vance calls out the media’s lies. pic.twitter.com/vc7kYateTs— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 16, 2026
“Over 50 people have died in ICE custody,” she said, adding that thousands of children were being held in facilities such as Dilley Detention Center. She cited claims from visitors who described poor conditions, including inadequate clean water, medical care and education. Navarro urged Vance, as a Christian and a father, to visit the facilities himself.
Vance responded by saying the government has to balance law enforcement with the need to treat people humanely.
“We do have to strike a balance, of course, between enforcing our laws — we don’t want to dehumanize people,” he said.
He added that law enforcement is often an unpleasant process, particularly when officers are dealing with people who may be resisting arrest or accused of violence.
Vance also argued that media coverage of immigration enforcement can be misleading. In some cases, he said, reports that present detainees sympathetically later leave out details such as criminal records or violent behavior.
“But the majority of people don’t have criminal records,” co-host Sunny Hostin interjected.
Hostin then accused ICE of separating families, removing people from their homes and using children as leverage. She argued that most of the people being detained are not criminals.
Vance turned the conversation toward children at the border, saying that during the Biden administration, large numbers of migrant children entered the country under dangerous circumstances and became vulnerable to trafficking.
“Unless you enforce the border,” Vance said, “you invite that kind of conduct.”
He said it is also inhumane to allow cartels to exploit people and traffic them across the border.
Navarro then acknowledged that the Trump administration had done “a great job closing the border,” even as she continued to criticize aspects of immigration detention.
The exchange showed how much of the immigration debate depends on which facts, sources and assumptions people trust. Liberals have often focused on the treatment of migrants in detention and the effects of enforcement on families. Conservatives, meanwhile, have pointed to border security, trafficking, cartel activity and the failures of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
That same divide appeared last month when left-wing protesters gathered outside ICE’s Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, claiming that conditions inside were unacceptable. Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey later toured the facility and said he did not see what protesters had described.
For Vance, the challenge on “The View” was not simply answering questions. It was answering questions built on assumptions he clearly rejects. He did so by returning to the same point throughout the segment: immigration enforcement can be difficult and uncomfortable, but refusing to enforce the border carries its own human cost.
