Key Takeaways From the Republican Convention’s Message on Immigration

Former President Donald J. Trump and Republicans are in lock step on the issue of immigration, further evidence that he has cemented his grip on the party during his third run for the White House.

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Trump’s conspiracies about immigrants and illegal voting have become widespread among Republicans.

In panels and speeches at the convention, falsehoods about noncitizens’ voting have become more pervasive and central to Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Mark Morgan, a former top Trump immigration official, claimed without evidence that Democrats were encouraging illegal immigration for political reasons, in order to bring more people into their party. Kari Lake, a Trump acolyte and Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, falsely accused her Democratic opponent of voting “to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election.”

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said Democrats “wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children.” Senator Rick Scott of Florida recalled a nightmare, he said, in which “Biden and the Democrats flew so many illegals” into the United States that it “was easy for Democrats to rig the elections.”

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Deaths of young women are being used in emotional appeals that tie crime to immigration.

Kate Steinle. Laken Riley. Rachel Morin. Republican political candidates and leaders are invoking the names of women, many of them young and white, who authorities have said were killed by undocumented immigrants. Their deaths have been used to amplify calls for mass deportations and other hard-line immigration restrictions.

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“Mass deportation now!” is the new “Build the wall.”

Familiar “Build the wall” chants were still heard occasionally at the convention, but a new slogan is gaining prominence, spotted on white, red and blue signs throughout the hall: “Mass deportation now!”

Mr. Trump’s mass deportation proposal would be the largest in the nation’s history, and Trump surrogates and convention speakers are forging support for it. {snip}

On Monday, Thomas D. Homan, who served as Mr. Trump’s acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, dismissed concerns that the program would be inhumane and that its holding centers would resemble “concentration camps.” Other speakers framed the effort as necessary, saying migrants were taking housing, jobs and services from other marginalized Americans {snip}

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Republicans focus on stories about the American dream but ignore legal pathways for immigrants.

Representative Monica de La Cruz, who is in a closely watched re-election race in Texas, described herself on Wednesday as a “proud granddaughter of Mexican farmworkers who came here with little more than faith in God.”

Her presence on the stage was part of an increase in candidates and elected officials of color, some with immigrant backgrounds, who cite the promise of the United States and the American dream to underscore support for legal immigration. Their stories are also used to bolster Republicans’ case against Democrats who accuse them of being racist and hating immigrants.

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