The Republican Party has revised its stance on border security and immigration with a new blueprint for enforcement, should former President Donald Trump return to the White House in 2025. A comparison of the 2016 and 2024 Republican National Committee platforms reveals a significant shift in messaging and policy priorities.
The change in tone and emphasis reflects the current state of the border, which has seen a surge in illegal immigration under President Joe Biden. Senator Marsha Blackburn, chairwoman of the RNC’s platform committee, attributes the shift to the Biden administration’s handling of the border, stating that “under Joe Biden, you have had about 10 million illegal aliens come into the country, and people are living this.”
Trump’s campaign has echoed this sentiment, with national press secretary Karoline Leavitt stating that Biden’s “Border Bloodbath has made it more important than ever to address our border security.” The new platform prioritizes border security and illegal immigration, with policy initiatives such as “seal the border, and stop the migrant invasion,” “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history,” and “stop the migrant crime epidemic.”
The 2024 platform also includes a halt on migrant releases into the United States, as well as a stop to “migrant crime.” In contrast, the 2016 platform focused on mandating E-Verify, reforming guest worker programs, and providing better protections for victims of crimes carried out by illegal immigrants.
However, some experts have criticized the new platform for its anti-immigrant sentiment and lack of support for legal immigrants. David Bier of the Cato Institute notes that the new platform has “nothing positive to say about immigrants” and that diverting funding away from other law enforcement agencies should “worry Americans and the personnel in those agencies.”
The 2016 platform, on the other hand, championed legal immigrants as “making vital contributions in every aspect of national life” and praised their commitment to American values. The new platform makes no mention of the benefits of immigration and instead focuses on shutting down the border at all costs.
The frequency of references to the word “border” in the platforms also reflects the shift in focus, with the 2024 platform mentioning it more than two dozen times, compared to less than a dozen in the previous one.
