CBS censored Sen. J.D. Vance Tuesday night, cutting his microphone during the vice presidential candidates’ debate as he tried to correct the network’s anchors on the immigration process.

Mr. Vance was defending his controversial comments earlier this summer about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, and said illegal immigrants take jobs, overwhelm hospitals and take up housing, leaving Americans in the lurch.

CBS’s anchors, breaking their own rules that they wouldn’t fact-check the candidates, told Mr. Vance that the Haitians had legal status.

Mr. Vance then began to explain the complicated process that led the Haitians to be in the U.S., and the network silenced his microphone, along with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, his Democratic opponent.

“The audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut,” Margaret Brennan said.

The dramatic moment came at the end of a string of questions about immigration.

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Mr. Vance, the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee and a first-term senator from Ohio, said former President Donald Trump would target 1 million criminal illegal immigrants for his mass deportation plans and then would tighten enforcement to try to dry up the the jobs that keep illegal immigrants in the U.S.

“A lot of people will go home,” he said.

Mr. Walz complained that Mr. Trump was “dehumanizing” illegal immigrants and said Vice President Kamala Harris would sign a bill tightening border asylum claims.

Mr. Walz then bashed Mr. Vance for the comments about Haitian migrants in Springfield, where some residents erroneously believed the migrants were eating pet cats or dogs.

CBS’s anchors said the migrants had legal status because they were in the country under what’s known as Temporary Protected Status.

In fact, the migrants largely came as unauthorized migrants, entering the U.S. without a visa. They were caught and released under lax Biden enforcement policies.

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Later, the administration granted Haitians TPS, which is a sort of deportation amnesty. It grants a tentative legal status but is not an actual visa to be in the U.S.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.