Vance cites 2002 Scorsese movie when asked about mass deportation

Vice presidential candidate JD Vance is standing by his position that ethnic neighborhoods are a source of crime — basing his conclusion on a 2002 Martin Scorsese movie.

Vance was asked at a campaign appearance Friday about previous remarks he made about waves of early immigration in the U.S. and how they relate to issues of crime and ethnic enclaves, and he raised the movie "Gangs of New York" about New York City in the 19th century in his response.

“Has anybody seen the movie 'Gangs of New York,'" Vance said in an appearance at the Milwaukee Police Association. “That is what I'm talking about, with these ethnic enclaves in our country, it can lead to higher crime rates.”

It was an effort by the Ohio senator to defend former President Donald Trump's call for large-scale deportations to remove non-citizens from the country, a central element of his presidential campaign.

Vance was asked by a reporter if mass deportations would address crime, apparently referencing remarks he made about “ethnic enclaves” in a 2021 interview.

“You had this massive wave of Italian, Irish, and German immigration right? And that had its problems, its consequences,” Vance said in an interview in 2021 when he was running for Senate. “You had higher crime rates, you had these ethnic enclaves, you had inter-ethnic conflict.”

When asked for comment, Vance campaign spokesperson William Martin pivoted to criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris and stated that Vance “will do everything he can to assist President Trump in reversing these weak, failed and dangerously liberal border policies.”

At the Milwaukee event, he returned to that theme, citing the 2002 film about an Irish man who returns to New York to kill his father’s killer, the leader of a gang that believes America should belong to native-born Americans and opposes immigration.

“What happens when you have massive amounts of illegal immigration,” Vance said. “It actually starts to create ethnic conflict. It creates higher crime rates. We’ve certainly seen that over the last few years. And I would like to stop it.”