The Daily Populous Tuesday January 13rd, 2026 morning edition
Authored by snopes.com and submitted by snopes-dot-com

Claim: U.S. Vice President JD Vance said, "I think we're going to see those deportation numbers ramp up as we get more and more people online, working for ICE, going door-to-door and making sure that if you're an illegal alien, you've got to get out of this country." Rating: About this rating Correct Attribution

On Jan. 7, 2026, U.S. Vice President JD Vance appeared on Fox News to discuss Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents' deportation actions, among other issues. Numerous listeners claimed Vance proposed that ICE would go "door-to-door" to determine the immigration status of people across the country.

The claim spread on Instagram, Reddit, and other social media outlets, and numerous Snopes readers asked us to confirm that Vance made such a statement. According to the rumor, Vance said ICE agents would decide whom to deport after going "door-to-door" to check documentation.

Vance did indeed make the above statement in an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters. Footage of Vance on Fox News shows him responding to a question from Watters about how President Donald Trump's administration would speed up deportations of immigrants in the country illegally, to which Vance said ICE agents would be going "door-to-door" to check documentation. As such, we rate this claim a correct attribution.

Watters asked Vance, "Are we getting these illegals out fast enough?" Vance responded (at 14:19, emphasis ours):

We always want to get them out faster. A lot of the ICE agents that we have hired in the past six months, they're not even done with training. So all of the big investments that we've made in border security, what we've done is actually gotten 2½ million illegal aliens out without any of the really big marquee things that we've been working on. That was just simple willpower and the president of the United States coming in and saying, "This is done." I think we're going to see those deportation numbers ramp up as we get more and more people online, working for ICE, going door-to-door and making sure that if you're an illegal alien, you've got to get out of this country and if you want to come back, apply through the proper channels.

For further reading, Snopes has reported previously on an image that purportedly showed Renee Nicole Good's vehicle aimed at an ICE agent in Minneapolis just before the officer fatally shot her. Vance has claimed that Good tried to ram the agent and that the agent's own video shows this, while multiple credible analyses of videos from the shooting contradict the vice president's claim.

supertoned on January 12nd, 2026 at 21:24 UTC »

So, as America, we're going to go door to door making sure everyone has their papers.

And we're going to say that, if you disagree with this policy, that anyone who has engaged in 'Anti-American Speech' is a 'Domestic Terrorist'.

And the sitting POTUS is going to say that if you are a 'Disrespectful' person, you deserve to be summarily executed by the 'Papers, Please' masked un-identifiable agents.

How the actual fuck can ANYONE support what is going on right now?

*edit*

Evidently, your papers do not, in fact matter. ICE is using a facial biometric scanner they call 'Mobile Fortify'. If you are scanned by their app, and it returns a 'Non-Citizen' result, you are evidently taken into custody. There is no information on whether they have the ability to remove citizenship status from any person in this database. Furthermore, according to a recently released DHS document, American citizens are UNABLE TO REFUSE to be scanned by this process, and they will save your personal data for 15 years on their servers.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26209262-mobile-fortify-pta/?ref=404media.co

“ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien,” https://www.404media.co/you-cant-refuse-to-be-scanned-by-ices-facial-recognition-app-dhs-document-says/

TintedApostle on January 12nd, 2026 at 21:22 UTC »

4th amendment.

If masked men knock on your door you must assume they are dangerous. Call the police.

Prudent_Link6029 on January 12nd, 2026 at 21:21 UTC »

Literally illegal and unconstitutional