Vice Presidential Candidate JD Vance visited High Point University Thursday in an effort to court Gen Z voters. The town hall event was hosted by Turning Point Action, a right-wing activist group known in part for spreading false claims about the 2020 election and COVID-19 vaccines.
Students at the event said they were concerned about housing, tax policy and inflation. High Point Senior Reagan Farmer said she was also interested in Vance’s background.
“I'm very inspired by JD Vance's story from rural America, being able to get out of that poverty and those environments and being able to succeed how he did,” she said. “I'm also very inspired by Charlie Kirk's movement about bringing Christianity back into the schools and back into everything, as well as the freedom aspect of it.”
Kirk, Turning Point’s founder and the moderator of the town hall, has become known for advancing the Christian Nationalist movement. He’s also known in part for furthering conspiracies related to race, saying Democratic immigration policies are "diminishing and decreasing white demographics in America.”
Immigration came up in a question asked by an HPU senior.
“My question is, how will you and President Trump fix the amount of illegal immigrants in this country, specifically relating to the safety of young women like myself thinking about moving to New York City after school?”
Vance advised against the move.
“I wish I could give you a different answer, but I'd be very worried about moving to some of these you know, one-party states and one-party cities because if you look at the levels of violent crime, especially assaults, muggings, things like that, they're moving in the wrong direction.”
The Trump Campaign has repeatedly tied immigration to crime, but research shows that narrative is false. Investigations by The New York Times and The Marshall Project found no link between undocumented immigrants and a rise in violent or property crime.
The campaign will return to the Triad on Saturday, when former President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Greensboro.