JD Vance triggers backlash — including from fellow Republican — by 'exploiting' death

Vice President JD Vance used the murder of an 18-year-old British student to deliver a sweeping attack on European immigration policy, drawing sharp criticism from across the political spectrum — including from a Republican who noted that Vance's own wife is of South Asian descent and that the killer was British.

Henry Nowak, a finance student, was stabbed five times by Vickrum Digwa in Southampton, England in December 2025. Digwa, a British citizen, was convicted of murder on May 28 and sentenced to life with a minimum of 21 years. The case drew widespread outrage in Britain after police handcuffed Nowak as he lay dying from his wounds, despite him telling officers nine times "I can't breathe" and four times that he had been stabbed.

Vance posted a lengthy statement framing Nowak's death as evidence of civilizational decline caused by migration. "He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it," Vance wrote.

Nowak's family pushed back before the criticism even began. His father said: "We do not want Henry's murder to be used to create further hatred, division or tension."

Gregg Nunziata, a Republican lawyer and former Senate Judiciary Committee chief counsel, called out Vance directly — and personally. "The VP, whom I knew a bit in the before times, and I both married women with South Asian roots," Nunziata wrote. "I'm mystified by how he could so quickly jump on an objectively awful story and frame it in an anti-immigrant, here specifically anti-South Asian, way." In a second post, Nunziata went further: "What Vance is doing here, and may God forgive him, is exactly what the Left did around Floyd and other events. He's taking a messy situation, with obvious and shameful mistakes, generalizing and weaponizing them, and exploiting a death in pursuit of political advantage."

Actor James Woods escalated rather than recoiled. "The Second Amendment is fast becoming our only means of survival," he replied to Vance. "Carry, carry, carry. Nobody is going to be there in time to save you. Talk is lovely, but a bullet is faster."

Ed Davey, leader of the UK Liberal Democrats, pushed back from abroad: "We all need to resist attempts like this to politicise Henry Nowak's death and divide our country — whether they come from MAGA politicians like Vance or their cronies here in the UK."

British commentator Tan Smith redirected the argument against the VP. "Your ICE agents shot an unarmed US citizen in the head. A mother. Then they shot another man for standing in the street. The US government murders its own citizens."