MADRID (AP) — President Donald Trump excoriated European leaders about their efforts to slow irregular migration, claiming they have done little to prevent an influx of outsiders that has transformed the continent.
However, Trump’s claims during an address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday come amid a decline in Europe’s irregular border crossings, which have largely been decreasing for a decade. European Union countries have spent billions of euros to stanch the flow of unauthorized migration, which includes people who came to or remained in the EU illegally or who applied for asylum in one of its member states.
Here’s a look at the facts:
Irregular migration to Europe isn’t on the rise
TRUMP: “Europe is in serious trouble. They’ve been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before.”
THE FACTS: Irregular border crossings from January through August were down roughly 20% compared to the same period last year, according to the EU’s border control agency Frontex. About 112,000 people were flagged trying to cross the EU’s external borders in the first eight months of this year, whereas nearly 140,000 were flagged from January through August of 2024, according to preliminary data. Some people might have been detected more than once.
Still, as was the case in the U.S. when Donald Trump first successfully ran for president, unauthorized immigration has weighed heavily on European politics since 2015, when droves of migrants and refugees arrived, including many who were fleeing Syria’s civil war.
Asylum applications to Europe fell last year but had been rising since 2020. More than 900,000 people applied for asylum in EU countries in 2024, which was 13% fewer than in 2023, according to EU data. Since 2008, the first year for which such figures exist, asylum requests peaked in 2015 at 1.2 million.
Europe struggles with deportation orders
TRUMP: “Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe, and nobody’s doing anything to change it, to get them out.”
THE FACTS: EU authorities have struggled to carry out deportation orders. Every year, more than 400,000 foreign nationals who aren’t legally in the EU are ordered to leave, but only about 20% are deported, according to the European Commission.
Geographic and bureaucratic hurdles make deporting migrants without documentation difficult within the bloc, authorities say.
“Geography adds to the challenge. People don’t go to one place. They go to dozens of countries, all with different levels of cooperation and different political realities. And not every country is very open to take its citizens back,” said Chris Borowski, a spokesperson for the EU’s border control agency, Frontex.
Trump also said European nations are “going to hell” and that immigrants stopped coming to the U.S. illegally when his administration began “detaining and deporting everyone who crossed the border.”
Arrests for illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico plunged after the Biden administration introduced severe asylum restrictions in June 2024 and plummeted even further after Trump took office in January, falling to their lowest levels in six decades. The administration has launched aggressive deportation campaigns across the country but has not regularly released figures.
Some EU countries have large migrant and foreign-born populations in prisons
TRUMP: “According to the Council of Europe, in 2024, almost 50% of inmates in German prisons were foreign nationals or migrants. In Austria, the number was 53% of the people in prisons were from places that weren’t from where they are now. In Greece, the number was 54%. And in Switzerland, beautiful Switzerland, 72% of the people in prisons are from outside of Switzerland.”
THE FACTS: This is largely true, but Trump’s numbers for Germany weren’t right. Last year, 37% of Germany’s inmates — not 50% — were foreign-born or migrants.
In Austria, about 48% of inmates are Austrian citizens, lining up with Trump’s numbers. And in Switzerland, foreign nationals make up nearly 73% of its prison population, a rate that has largely held steady for 20 years, according to government data. That’s 5,069 of the country’s nearly 7,000 inmates, according to data published this April.
The reasons for that vary, according to Femke van der Meulen, founder of the Netherlands-based nonprofit Prison Watch, which works with foreign-born inmate populations.
“For foreigners, there’s an increased probability of detection. A foreign appearance or language can increase the risk of detection. More easily, they are often put into detention because they don’t have a place to live in that country, and authorities try to take a safe bet on the fact that the person will not flee the country,” she said.
Trump says London’s mayor wants to implement Sharia law
TRUMP: “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor — a terrible, terrible mayor — and it’s been so changed, so changed. Now they want to go to Sharia law.”
THE FACTS: London’s mayor Sadiq Khan has never suggested that he might try to introduce Sharia, or Islamic law, to London.
On Wednesday, Khan told Sky News that he was “a Muslim mayor who leads a liberal, multicultural, progressive, successful city.”
The U.K is home to several Sharia councils, which deal with marriage and family issues according to Islamic teachings. They are similar to Jewish Beth Din rabbinical courts, which also exist in Britain.
The decisions of the Muslim and Jewish councils have no bearing on the British legal system, even if they carry weight within the religious communities they serve.
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Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.
___ Associated Press reporters Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Renata Brito in Barcelona, Spain, Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, Greece, and Jill Lawless in London contributed.
