Shut down the border, build the wall, stop the immigrants, ban the imported fentanyl killing our kids,

make America safe once again.

The Republican mantras around illegal immigration and safety have long since taken on a dark Trumpian tone. From his

earliest campaigns, right up to the speech he was making last Saturday when he was shot at,

Donald Trump has made a fetish of keeping foreigners out, linking them with killing and rape

and voter fraud, and the drive with him is to put Americans first.

But what are the Republicans actually saying?

And what are they not saying?

As fire and brimstone once again takes centre stage

and delegates delight in a common, if largely imaginary enemy,

the invaders crossing the borders into America. I'm Deborah Friedel, contributing editor to the London Review of Books. And I'm Andrew

Hagen, editor-at-large. It's day two of the Republican National Convention.

It's a few minutes before midnight in Milwaukee.

One of the themes today was security.

What was the security like for you getting into the convention?

You know, it's really striking the way the city is in a sort of lockdown for this convention.

In that area, the dead center, where the convention centre is and the press centre,

they call it the hard zone.

And it is a strange mixture of being in a kind of Disneyland,

where, you know, these empty streets off to one side,

and you kind of expect a parade to come down at any moment and sort of people twirling batons and mini mouse with a trump face on. And yet it's sort of sinister at the same time in a different way because, you know, it's so soldiered. It's so

heavily armored. These fences are high. The roadblocks are immovable. And you feel cattled while you're in there.

...