In a troubling sign of how the xenophobia at play here may be yoked to the powers of the federal government in a Trump II presidency, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH, ironically) insisted on continuing to call the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio “illegal aliens” even though they are legal immigrants.

When confronted by a questioner about the Haitians being in the country legally, Vance played to the crowd and, with stubborn grandiosity, stuck to his false claim denying them their legal status:

Btw this is why they call everything they oppose a slippery slope: because it’s what they want to do with their policies, and they project that’s what other people want to do too.