Republicans Link Murders and Drug Overdoses to Biden Border Policies on RNC’s Second Night

Academics say undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes

Donald Trump made illegal immigration an animating principle of his first run for President, riding down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 to claim the U.S. had become a “dumping ground” and Mexico was sending “rapists” across the border.

Nearly a decade later, dark images of undocumented immigrants invading the country, killing U.S. citizens and trafficking illegal drugs permeated the second night of the Republican National Convention on Tuesday in Milwaukee.

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As Trump looked on from his red-and-white box across from the stage, speakers blamed Democrats and President Biden for countless violent crimes committed by migrants in the country illegally, and drew cheers from the delegates in the convention hall as they promised Trump would reverse the trend.

“We are suffering an invasion, not figuratively, a literal invasion,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas told the crowd, adding that every day, “Americans are dying murdered, assaulted, raped by illegal immigrants that the Democrats have released,” and blaming Democrats for children being “sold into a life of sex slavery.”

“This is evil and it is wrong and it is happening every damn day,” Cruz said, prompting the crowd to join him in chanting a refrain of “every damn day,” as he described the deaths of people allegedly killed by undocumented immigrants who had been released from police custody.

Multiple academic studies have found that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans. A study published by the Annual Review of Criminology in 2023 found no association between high concentrations of immigrants and increased levels of crime.

Anne Fundner, a mother of four children, drew a strong reaction as she spoke about her 15-year-old son’s death from a fentanyl overdose in Southern California in 2022, which she described as “the tragic reality of open borders.”

“I hold Joe Biden and Kamala Harris—the border czar—what a joke, and every Democrat who supports open borders, responsible for the death of my son,” Fundner said. As she spoke, the crowd chanted, “Joe must go.” and waved printed signs handed out by convention staff that read, “Stop Biden’s border bloodbath.”

Michael Morin came to the stage to describe the death of his sister Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother who was killed last year while exercising on a trail in Hartford County, Maryland. A 23-year-old immigrant from El Salvador in the country unlawfully was arrested in her death, police said.  “Open borders are often portrayed as compassionate and virtuous, but there is nothing compassionate about allowing violent criminals into our country and robbing children of their mother,” Morin said. 

Randy Sutton, a retired Las Vegas police lieutenant, was cheered when he described an “endless tsunami of illegal aliens” coming into the U.S. He blamed crime in America’s cities on Biden’s immigration policy and said police weren’t being respected. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, well, they stand with the criminals,” Sutton said, adding that “these pro-criminal anti-police extremists” fear Trump’s return to the White House.

The alarmist tone to many of the night’s speeches follow a decline in border crossings in recent weeks, after Biden announced last month that the U.S. would stop processing asylum claims when daily arrests for unauthorized crossings spike above 2,500. Illegal border crossings have averaged 2 million per year since 2021.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who ran against Trump in the Republican primary touting his anti-immigration policies, said that Biden supports “open borders allowing millions and millions of illegal aliens pouring into our country and to burden our communities.”

“Just don’t send them to Martha’s Vineyard,” he added. “They get upset.” DeSantis used Florida state funds to fly migrants to Massachusetts in 2022 to protest Biden’s immigration policies.

Trump has promised on his first day in office to seal the U.S. border and begin arresting and deporting millions of immigrants living in the country without authorization. He told TIME earlier this year he would be willing to build a series of migrant detention camps to facilitate the process if needed.