Republicans once championed immigration in the US. Why has the party’s rhetoric – and public opinion – changed so dramatically?

It might seem surprising today in the era of Donald Trump, but Republicans in the United States once championed immigration and supported pathways to citizenship for undocumented Americans.

In January 1989, Ronald Reagan’s final speech as president was an impassioned ode to the immigrants who made America “a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas”.

Contrast this with Trump, who has normalised dehumanising rhetoric and policies against immigrants. In this year’s presidential campaign, for instance, he has referred to undocumented immigrants as “animals” who are “poisoning the blood of our country”.

Both Trump and his vice presidential running mate, JD Vance, also repeated a false story about Haitian “illegal aliens” eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

Perhaps most troubling, Trump has pledged to launch “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country”, if he’s elected.

Immigration policies throughout history

Nativism, or anti-immigrant sentiment, has a long history in American politics.

In 1924, a highly restrictive immigration quota system based on racial and national origins was introduced. This law envisaged America as a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant nation.

However, there was no restriction on immigrants from the Western Hemisphere. The agricultural and railroad sectors relied heavily on workers from Mexico.

In 1965, the quota system was replaced by visa preference categories for family and employment-based migrants, along with refugee and asylum slots.

Then, as violence and economic instability spread across Central America in the 1970s, there was a surge in undocumented immigration to the US.

Scholar Leo Chavez argues that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, an alarmist “Latino threat narrative” became the dominant motif in media discussions of immigration.

This narrative was frequently driven by Republican politicians in states on the US-Mexico border, who derived electoral advantage from amplifying voter anxieties.

The growing popularity of this negative discourse coincided with a significant increase in income inequality – a byproduct of neo-liberal policies championed by Reagan and other Republicans.

Read more: Before Trump, there was a long history of race-baiting, fear-mongering and building walls on the US-Mexico border

A dramatic shift in Republican rhetoric

In the early-to-mid 20th century, Democrats were often the party that supported restrictive immigration and border policies.

However, most Republicans at the national level – strongly supported by business – tended to endorse policies that encouraged the easy flow of workers across the border and increased levels of legal immigration.

Prominent conservative Republicans also rejected vilifying rhetoric towards undocumented Americans. They presented all immigrants as pursuing opportunities for their families, a framing that emphasised a shared vision of the American dream. In this telling, their labour contributed to the economy and America’s growth and prosperity.

Reagan, the most influential conservative of the late 20th century, opposed erecting a border wall and supported amnesty over deportation.

Reagan also strongly supported bipartisan immigration reform. In 1986, Congress passed an immigration act that increased border security funding, but also ensured 2.7 million undocumented immigrants, primarily of Latino background, were able to gain legal status.

Twenty years later, President George W. Bush and Republican Senator John McCain lobbied for a bipartisan bill that would have tightened border enforcement while simultaneously “legalising” an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants. It was narrowly defeated.

This vocal support for immigrants by leading Republicans was striking because for much of the period between the late 1980s and the early 2000s, a majority of Americans actually wanted immigration levels reduced.

Then, around 2009, a dramatic shift in political rhetoric took place. The Tea Party movement brought border security and “racial resentment” towards immigrants centre stage, challenging conservative Republicans from the populist right.

As a result, more and more Republicans began to voice restrictionist and xenophobic rhetoric and support legislation aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration.

What’s surprising, though, is the number of undocumented immigrants in the US was actually declining at this time, from 12.2 million in 2007 to 10.7 million in 2016.

Donald Trump and the new nativism

In this worsening anti-immigrant climate, Trump descended a golden escalator in mid-2015 to launch his presidential campaign.

In his speech that day, immigration was front and centre. Trump vowed to “build a great wall” and accused Mexico of sending “rapists” and “criminals” to America.

His speeches during the presidential campaign were marked by frequent anti-Mexican assertions and calls for Islamophobic visa policies. This hostile stance on immigration was central to his victory in both the Republican primaries and the general election against Hillary Clinton.

Once in office, Trump then adopted a “zero tolerance” stance towards undocumented immigration. His administration pursued a heartrending family separation policy that split children and their undocumented parents at the border. This approach was celebrated on conservative media outlets such as Fox News.

During his presidency, he also reduced legal immigration by almost half, drastically cut America’s refugee intake, and introduced bans on people from Muslim-majority countries.

Policy expert David Bier concluded the goal of Republican lawmakers had shifted:

It really looks like the entire debate about illegality is not the main issue anymore for Republicans in both chambers of Congress. The main goal seems to be to reduce the number of foreigners in the United States to the greatest extent possible.

Indeed, Trump’s vision of the nation had overtly racial overtones.

In one 2018 meeting, he asked why America should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti, El Salvador or the African continent. His preference was for Norwegian migrants.

Immigration as a major election theme

From 2021–2023, undocumented US-Mexico border crossings surged due to natural disasters, economic downturns and violence in many Latin American and Caribbean nations. Many of the recent arrivals are asylum seekers.

Though the numbers have fallen sharply in 2024, immigration and the border are still one of the top issues for voters across the political spectrum. The issue is particularly important in the key swing state of Arizona.

In 2024, Trump’s central immigration promise was encapsulated by the beaming delegates waving signs calling for “Mass Deportations Now” at the Republican National Convention.

The Trump-Vance ticket has blamed undocumented immigrants for almost every economic and social problem imaginable. The two candidates present them as a dangerous and subversive “other” that cannot be assimilated into mainstream American culture.

Yet Trump, as both president and candidate, has worked to prevent the passage of border security legislation. Turmoil on the border benefits him.

And his nativism now encompasses all forms of immigration – he has pledged to curb legal channels for people to enter the country, as well.

All of this rhetoric has had a dramatic impact on public opinion. Between 2016 and 2024, the number of people supporting the deportation of undocumented immigrants jumped from 32% to 47%.

In July 2024, 55% of Americans also said they wanted to see immigration levels decrease, a 14-point increase in one year.

Many Americans do not perceive immigration as a source of vitality and renewal as they had in the past. Instead, reflecting Trump’s language, they are viewing immigrants as an existential threat to the country’s future.