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Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, defended his past comments on immigration by pointing to the 2002 Martin Scorsese movie “Gangs of New York” as an example of immigration leading to higher crime rates.
At a campaign appearance at the Milwaukee Police Association on Friday, Vance was asked about his comments in 2021 in which he claimed past waves of immigration led to increased crime, and if he thought mass deportations — a major part of the Trump-Vance campaign platform — would have addressed those issues. The Ohio senator responded by referencing the 2002 film in which an Irish man, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, exacts revenge for his father’s death by infiltrating a violent anti-immigrant gang in the mid-19th century.
“Has anybody ever seen the movie ‘Gangs of New York’? That’s what I’m talking about,” Vance said. “We know that when we have these massive ethnic enclaves form in our country, it can sometimes lead to higher crime rates.”
He later added: “What happens when you have massive amounts of illegal immigration, it actually starts to create ethnic conflict, it creates higher crime rates. We’ve certainly seen that over the last few years.”
Vance’s reference to “Gangs of New York” as evidence for his racist assertion about immigrants calls into question his comprehension of the movie. As Washington Post columnist Philip Bump pointed out on X, “the most brutal, vicious killer in that movie is the nativist who loathes immigrants.” But Vance’s claim is wrong about the real world as well: A slew of studies have shown that there is no significant link between immigration and crime. In fact, research has repeatedly shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
Michael Light, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has published a paper on the subject, told Reuters in April, “Of course, foreign-born individuals have committed crimes. But do foreign-born individuals commit crime at a disproportionately higher rate than native-born individuals? The answer is pretty conclusively no.”
Yet cases of violent crime committed by migrants gain widespread national attention, in no small part due to fearmongering about migrants taking jobs from Americans and committing crimes — one of Trump’s long-standing claims.
Vance has struggled greatly to boost Trump’s candidacy. Although many of his past remarks on women have led to particularly intense backlash as they resurface, Vance has also made several comments in recent weeks — including on Friday — that have done very little to help the situation or improve his popularity.
Polls indicate that he has not made a good impression on Americans so far, with his unfavorable ratings increasing by more than 9% since he was chosen as the GOP nominee’s running mate.