Trump's hardline immigration policies in spotlight on day two of RNC

Republicans rally around former president’s agenda at National Convention in Milwaukee, days after rally shooting.

Donald Trump’s hardline stance on immigration will be in the spotlight on the second day of the Republican National Convention (RNC), after the former United States president made his first public appearance since surviving an assassination attempt at the weekend.

Republicans are expected to hit out at their Democratic rivals on Tuesday at the RNC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the day’s theme is “Make America Safe Once Again”.

The GOP has rallied around the ex-president’s tough-on-immigration policies, which have been a central part of Trump’s political brand as well as his 2024 election campaign.

Republicans also have used immigration – one of the top issues of concern for American voters – to criticise US President Joe Biden before November’s election, which is set to be a close race between Biden and Trump.

They have accused the Democratic president of not doing enough to stem the flow of asylum seekers crossing the country’s southern border with Mexico, and the GOP’s platform pledges to seal the border and “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history”.

In an interview with FOX News on Monday, JD Vance – who was selected hours earlier as Trump’s running mate – said “we have to deport” undocumented immigrants in the US.

“We have to deport people who broke our laws, who came in here. And I think we start with the violent criminals,” Vance said.

Republicans also have sought to tie immigration to crime, promising in their party platform that they will stop an alleged “migrant crime epidemic”.

“Once iconic American cities and communities have become hollowed out, dystopian nightmares thanks to Joe Biden and Democrats’ ‘woke’ soft-on-crime and open border policies,” the Republican National Committee said as it unveiled the convention programme last week.

Violent crime has been falling across the US in recent years, however.

Research at Stanford University in California last year also showed that “immigrants are 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated than are US-born individuals who are white”.

“From Henry Cabot Lodge in the late 19th century to Donald Trump, anti-immigration politicians have repeatedly tried to link immigrants to crime, but our research confirms that this is a myth and not based on fact,” said Ran Abramitzky, a Stanford professor and the study author.

Migration rights advocates have also slammed the GOP for advancing “anti-immigrant rhetoric”.

Still, Trump and Republicans are hoping their hardline policies will appeal to voters as November’s presidential election nears.

Reporting from the RNC in Milwaukee, Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said it remains unclear who will be speaking on Tuesday evening at the event.

Members of Trump’s family as well as US business leaders, minor celebrities and Republican lawmakers are expected to address the crowd over the course of the four-day event, Culhane said.

Trump, who was formally confirmed as the Republican presidential nominee on Monday and received a hero’s welcome on the floor of the RNC, will deliver a speech on the convention’s closing night on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Biden continues to field questions about the viability of his re-election campaign after several Democrats called on him to drop out of the race in the aftermath of a confused and concerning debate performance last month.

Speaking to NBC News on Monday evening, the US president reiterated that he intends to stay on to challenge Trump in November.