Donald Trump said illegal immigrants "are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities"
Donald Trump accused Democratic rival Hillary Clinton of a legacy of "death, destruction, terrorism and weakness" as U.S. secretary of state and declared himself a friend of the working class in a speech on Thursday accepting the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump's speech was designed to set the tone for the general election campaign against Clinton, an answer to Republicans who say the best way he can unify the divided party is to detail why the Democrat should not be elected on Nov. 8.
As the crowd roared: "Lock her up," Trump waved them off and said: "Let's defeat her in November."
The remarks by Trump, 70, closed out a four-day convention that underscored his struggle to heal fissures in the Republican Party over his anti-illegal-immigrant rhetoric and concerns about his temperament. The event was boycotted by many big-name establishment Republicans, such as 2012 nominee Mitt Romney and members of the Bush family that gave the party its last two presidents.
Illegal immigrants, Trump said, "are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities," where he said they were straining resources, taking jobs away from American citizens and in some cases, committing crimes.
In his speech, Trump offered little in the way of details about his policies but rather portrayed himself as a fresh alternative to traditional politicians, willing to consider new approaches to vexing problems and help working-class people who may feel abandoned.
Laying out his case against Clinton, he denounced nation-building policies that were actually put in place to some extent by George W. Bush, without mentioning by name the Republican president who launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Trump said nation-building pursued by Clinton in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria had made a bad situation worse. He blamed her for the rise of Islamic State militants and blasted her willingness to accept thousands of Syrian refugees.
"After 15 years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before. This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction, terrorism and weakness," Trump said.
© Thomson Reuters 2016