Hegseth uses D-Day memorial to rail against ‘invasion’ of Europe by migrants
New York: In a speech commemorating the D-Day landings of World War II, United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth opposed the modern “invasion” of Europe by immigrants with “different ideologies.”
The remarks, made in Normandy on the 82nd anniversary of the Allied beach landings that launched the liberation of France and Western Europe from the Nazis, further increased the Trump administration’s pressure on European leaders to curb migration by sea.
“Unfortunately, today different shores of Europe are under attack from different dangerous ideologies,” Hegseth said at the ceremony.
“Beaches in Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men are coming. When will the European capitals do something about it?” HE Invasion? Or is it too late? I don’t pray and I believe I won’t.
“The men who fought and died here brought freedom back to Europe. This freedom must be preserved by this generation of leaders and warriors, or what they fought for was only temporary.”
“As our great President Ronald Reagan once said, freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction.”
The issue of immigration from Europe has been on the Trump administration’s agenda since Vice President J.D. Vance’s provocative speech at the Munich Security Conference early in President Donald Trump’s second term.
Hegseth’s reiteration of the message and implicit comparison of 1930s fascism with modern Islamism came amid new criticism from Vance over the death of British student Henry Nowak.
Nowak, 18, was stabbed to death by Vickrum Digwa in Southampton on England’s south coast in December. Digwa, 23, stabbed Nowak with a 21-centimeter Sikh dagger and was this week sentenced to life in prison with a minimum sentence of 21 years.
Although Nowak and her killer were British, the case was taken up by anti-immigration activists and politicians. Digwa falsely claimed to police that he was the victim of Nowak’s racist attack, and when officers arrived, they briefly treated him as a suspect before tending to his fatal injuries.
Vance posted on Friday (US time): “Henry Nowak died the way a civilization died: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared about him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit. His murder is as tragic as it is angry.”
“He should still be alive today, and he would be alive if the last few generations of European elites had stood up to the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of immigrants, many of whom despised the West and the people who loved it.”
The comments earned him a rebuke from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose office issued a statement condemning people “trying to interfere with our democracy and incite division on our streets.”
Speaking in Normandy, Hegseth said we would not have the free world we know today without Operation Overlord, the code name for the Allied landings on the Normandy coast.
“America, along with our allies, saved western civilization,” he said. The Allied Commander-in-Chief at that time was American General Dwight Eisenhower, who would later become the 34th US president.
with AP
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political correspondent in Canberra.Connect with: X or email.
