US President Donald Trump has criticised European migration policies in a combative address to the UN General Assembly, citing Greece among countries with high numbers of foreign nationals in prison.
Quoting the Council of Europe’s 2024 prison statistics, Trump said, “almost 50% of inmates in German prisons were foreign nationals or migrants, in Austria the number was 53%, in Greece the number was 54% and in Switzerland 72%.”
Arguing that European countries had “the right to control their borders,” Trump linked migration to rising crime and called for an end to what he described as “open-borders.”
“When your prisons are filled with so-called asylum seekers, who they repaid kindness with crime, it’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders,” he said. “Your countries are going to hell.”
The remarks came as part of a wider attack on the United Nations, climate policies and global migration programs, with Trump warning that Europe’s approach was “not sustainable.”
Source: Ekathimerini.