Trump Vows to End ‘Illegal Immigration Crisis’ with Stronger Policies, Border Wall

Former President Donald Trump vowed to end the “illegal immigration crisis” during his Thursday evening speech at the Republican National Convention — his first public address since he narrowly survived an assassination attempt last Saturday.

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“Under the current administration, we are indeed a nation on decline… We have an illegal immigration crisis and it’s taking place right now as we sit here in this beautiful arena,” Trump said.

Going on to call the crisis a “massive invasion,” that has spread crime and disease to “our communities,” he lamented that “nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”

“I will end the illegal by closing our border and finishing the wall, most of which I’ve already built,” the Republican continued.

Trump’s administration constructed over 400 miles of barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

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“We have to stop the invasion into our country that’s killing hundreds of thousands of people a year. We’re not going to let that happen,” Trump pressed on, appearing to refer to overdose deaths stemming from drugs coming over the border.

Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that 107,543 people fatally overdosed on drugs in the U.S. in 2023, after 111,029 in 2022.

“Today our cities are being flooded by illegal immigrants,” Trump continued, before saying that “Americans are being squeezed” out of the workforce in favor of migrants.

“You know who’s being hurt the most by millions of people pouring into the country? The black population and our Hispanic population,” he said, arguing that the new arrivals are taking jobs from those groups and hurting labor unions.

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He also called out El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, crediting him with cracking down on criminals in his nation while “sending them all to the United States.”

As for any country that refuses to take back migrants once they have been turned away at the border or deported, Trump said they will receive “no more economic aid of any kind.”

“We want people to come into our country, but they have to come into our country legally,” he noted.

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