Conservatives are all in on Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” promise—and they’ve even produced some disturbing merchandise to pair with it.
Attendees at the Republican National Convention were seen Wednesday holding up and waving signs reading “Make America Strong Again” and “Mass Deportation Now.”
Speaking to the conference on its third night, Texas Governor Greg Abbott reiterated his support for Trump, promising that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee would “arrest the criminal, illegal immigrants” and either “put them behind bars” or “send them back.” That launched the crowd into a fiery chant, with hundreds of attendees shouting to “send them back.”
My jaw is on the floor.
— Tim Young (@Young25Tim) July 18, 2024
This doesn’t feel like a political rally. It reads as something far more sinister when you have thousands of people chanting “SEND THEM BACK” and proudly waving their “MASS DEPORTATION NOW” signs in the air. pic.twitter.com/BZvx7swhaG
But Abbott wasn’t the only Republican to stoke the anti-immigration flames during the convention. The night before, Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise and House Speaker Mike Johnson promoted a white supremacist, alt-right conspiracy known as the Great Replacement Theory.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz—whose state overwhelmingly identifies as Hispanic—and Senate candidate Kari Lake, who’s running to represent 2.3 million voters in Arizona, both claimed that Democrats are letting undocumented immigrants vote. Of course, undocumented immigrants (and any other non-citizens) cannot vote in U.S. elections.
Trump has repeatedly promised to hold mass deportations should he be re-elected in November. In June, he claimed there were “close to 20 million people” who are “gonna have to be gone.”
