‘Send Usha Back’: JD Vance’s ‘Mass Migration is Theft’ Remark Ignites Firestorm, Draws Sharp Indian Reactions

Vice President JD Vance’s declaration that “mass migration is theft of the American Dream” has triggered a political firestorm, with the controversy gaining particular traction in Indian media as critics pointed to the glaring contradiction between his hardline immigration stance and his own marriage to Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants.

The statement, posted on X (formerly Twitter) on December 7, has dominated headlines across Indian news outlets and sparked intense debate among Indian Americans about hypocrisy, identity, and belonging in an increasingly hostile political climate.

The Incendiary Statement

According to India TV, Vance made the comment in response to a video shared by a construction company owner from Louisiana. The businessman claimed that since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began operations in the state, he had noticed a “dramatic change” in the labor market, stating “no immigrants want to go to work” and that he had received more job inquiries in the past week than in the previous three months.

Vance reposted the video with his own commentary: “Mass migration is theft of the American Dream. It has always been this way, and every position paper, think tank piece, and econometric study suggesting otherwise is paid for by the people getting rich off of the old system.”

The Personal Becomes Political

The backlash was immediate and pointed. Author and political commentator Wajahat Ali, a former columnist at the Daily Beast and contributor to the New York Times, responded sharply: “That means you have to send Usha, her Indian family, and your biracial kids back to India. Let us know when you buy the plane tickets. You must lead by example.”

According to Blaze Media, Usha Vance—a Yale Law School graduate who served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts—is, like her three children (sons Ewan and Vivek, and daughter Mirabel), an American citizen born in the United States. Her parents are not low-skilled laborers but a high-skilled couple: a mechanical engineer father and a molecular biologist mother who immigrated from India.

Indian Media Reaction

The controversy has received extensive coverage across Indian news platforms. India TV reported that social media users immediately pointed to Vance’s own family, with one writing, “Wait, is your wife not from an Indian immigrant family?” Another commented, “So this means you need to send Usha, her Indian family and your mixed-race children back to India. Let us know when you book the plane tickets. You should lead by example.”

Gujarat Samachar, a leading English-language Indian news outlet, characterized the exchange as a “sharp political back-and-forth” that “erupted on X,” noting that the remark “triggered an immediate wave of criticism” with critics invoking “Vance’s own family background.” The publication noted that “because Vance’s anti-immigration rhetoric contrasts sharply with his personal life, critics often cite his marriage to highlight what they see as hypocrisy in his stance.”

Business Today reported that the remark was “widely criticized as xenophobic and hypocritical,” with the backlash intensifying as “critics pointed out that Vance’s wife, Usha, is the daughter of Indian immigrants, with some even goading him to ‘send her back’ to India in response to his stance.”

The Federal, an Indian news publication, reported that “many critics have pointed out that Vance’s wife, Usha, is the daughter of Indian immigrants, with some even urging him to ‘send her back’ to India.”

The controversy has received extensive coverage across Indian news platforms. India TV reported that social media users immediately pointed to Vance’s own family, with one writing, “Wait, is your wife not from an Indian immigrant family?” 

Telugu-language news outlets also covered the story extensively, with V6 Velugu highlighting the contradiction between Vance’s rhetoric and his personal circumstances. Hindi news platform News Danka ran the headline referencing the “Usha Vance Row.”

Pattern of Controversial Statements

According to multiple Indian news sources, this is not the first instance of Vance making controversial statements about immigration and cultural identity. During a recent appearance on the New York Post’s podcast, India TV and other outlets reported, Vance said it was “totally reasonable and acceptable” for Americans to prefer neighbors who share their race, language, or skin color—a statement that drew condemnation from civil rights advocates.

The Inquisitr noted that one journalist, Brian Allen, commented: “This man is married to an Indian woman. He has mixed-race kids. And he’s out here pandering to people who would’ve side-eyed his own family at the mailbox. If he won’t defend them, he’ll sell out anyone — MAGA included.”

Another social media user was quoted saying, “Dawg, your in-laws speak another language,” highlighting the contradiction in Vance’s position.

The Religious Dimension

The controversy comes on the heels of another firestorm involving Vance’s comments about his wife’s Hindu faith. According to CNN, speaking at a Turning Point USA event in November at the University of Mississippi, Vance discussed his interfaith marriage, saying: “My wife did not grow up Christian. I think it’s fair to say she grew up in a Hindu family but not in a particularly religious family.”

Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019 after being raised in an evangelical family, added: “Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved by in church? Absolutely. Do I honestly wish that she would become Christian? Absolutely.”

CNN reported that “despite Vance’s invocation of free will, his remarks struck a nerve—some described the vice president’s words as denigrating towards Hindus—and broadly, South Asians—at a time of rising hostilities towards immigrants in the US.”

Kush Mehta, 25, of Mumbai, told CNN: “It’s ridiculous and absolutely wrong. I’m in favor of everyone having their own identity, their own values, and their own spiritual path. No one should be forced or pressured into any religion.”

CNN-News18 editor Shubhangi Sharma wrote in an opinion column: “Vance felt compelled to declare that his wife was indeed raised Hindu, but not that Hindu. In a political climate so charged against Indian immigrants, this is not just personal. It’s political.”

Defense from Unlikely Quarters

Interestingly, some critics of Vance’s policies defended his family. California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who is also Hindu, wrote on X according to CNN: “No one has been harsher on JD Vance’s policy than I have. But his wife is an accomplished daughter of immigrants, and they have young kids. Attack on the policies. Leave his family out of it.”

Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Sen. John McCain, described Usha Vance as a “huge asset” to the Republican party, someone who bridged party and political lines and “brought warmth” to the vice president, calling her “a modern mother and a style icon” and “my favorite person in the Trump administration.”

Broader Immigration Context

The controversy unfolds against the backdrop of an aggressive immigration crackdown by the Trump administration. According to Business Today and The Federal, on December 3, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced an immediate suspension of all immigration applications, including green cards, citizenship, and asylum claims, from 19 “high-risk” countries previously targeted by travel bans.

The Pew Research Center data cited by Blaze Media indicated that as of January 2025, there were 53.3 million immigrants living in the U.S.—the largest number ever recorded. Over 15% of all U.S. residents and 19% of the U.S. labor force were immigrants.

According to multiple news reports, when asked on a podcast whether a future Trump administration planned to deport all undocumented immigrants, Vance replied: “We’re trying to remove as many as we possibly can.”

Previous Confrontation with Indian American Woman

The latest controversy also recalls an earlier incident reported by Gujarat Samachar in October 2025, when an Indian-origin woman engaged in a tense question-and-answer session with Vance at the University of Mississippi over the administration’s strict immigration policies.

According to the report, the woman asked: “When you talk about too many immigrants in the U.S., who decides that number?” She argued that immigrants’ “youth and wealth were spent in this country” and that they had “worked hard for their place.”

The woman was referring to the Trump administration’s strict policies on legal immigration through changes in the H-1B system, with around 6,000 visas of international students also revoked at that time. She reportedly asked how a vice president could say things like “We have too many of them now, and we are going to take them out” to people who came to the US “by the path offered by the country itself.”

Indian American Community Response

While comprehensive organized responses from major Indian American organizations were not immediately available, the intense social media reaction and widespread coverage in Indian media suggests deep concern within the community.

Bombay Samachar’s English edition characterized Vance’s rhetoric as “vintage Trumpism” and “a calculated strategy to weaponize economic anxiety into cultural fear,” noting that “while it is factual that rapid, unchecked migration can strain public systems and fuel wage suppression (studies indicate a 5–10% dip for native workers in low-skill sectors), framing it as an existential plot overlooks the glaring economic and personal contradiction at the heart of his message.”

The Daily Jagran reported that “as the debate grows louder, JD Vance now faces sustained political pressure at a time when immigration remains one of the most polarizing issues in American politics.”

The Irony Not Lost

The UK-based X user @AdameMedia was quoted writing: “Your wife and children are stealing the American dream”—a comment that encapsulates the central irony critics see in Vance’s position.

As BizzBuzz News noted, “Vance’s stance has triggered widespread backlash, especially as his wife Usha Vance is of Indian heritage. Her parents migrated from India, and Usha, an American lawyer, has been the second lady of the US since 2025.”

The Inquisitr observed that according to Blaze Media’s reporting, Wajahat Ali’s comment about sending Vance’s family back to India came from “the son of convicted fraudsters who immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan,” adding another layer of complexity to the debate about who has standing to criticize whom on immigration issues.

The controversy shows no signs of abating. With Vance having made multiple statements about immigration, race, religion, and cultural preference in recent months—each triggering backlash—the question for many Indian Americans is whether the Vice President’s rhetoric represents official Trump administration policy or simply Vance’s personal views.

For a community that has largely thrived under the existing immigration system, Vance’s characterization of “mass migration” as “theft” feels particularly pointed—especially when his own family story represents precisely the kind of high-skilled immigration that has enriched American society.

As one unnamed social media user put it, according to The Inquisitr: “This is probably not the path to a Republican nomination, where you throw your wife, her family and your own children under the bus.”

The story, conceptualized and edited by American Kahani’s News Desk, was aggregated by AI from several news sources.