Original air date: October 5th 2025

In his recent speech to the United Nations, President Trump reiterated his longstanding warning about the continued threat of unchecked illegal immigration. It is an issue that launched his unlikely campaign and propelled him to a first and then second term in the White House. During the past decade, the message has remained clear on an issue that has reshaped the world order.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

President Trump: Both the immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe if something is not done immediately. This cannot be sustained.

Perhaps more than any other singular issue, illegal immigration has defined President Trump’s campaigns and terms in office. A topic he addressed in my first interview with him in 2015, when he was a largely ridiculed candidate for the nation’s highest office, given little to no chance of winning.

Trump: I think it is insanity to take 200,000 people. When you take 200,000 people, it’s very hard to do anything about it. We don’t know who they are; this could be an ISIS army.

Sharyl: So, how many refugees should we take?

Trump: Well, certainly from Syria I would take none.

When elected in 2016, President Trump put promise to action with a wall to stop the swarm across America’s southern border, stalled by court challenges until near the end of his term.

Sharyl: How tall is that?

Castrejon: And this is 30 feet tall. Before that, we virtually had no physical barrier at the border, so you can imagine, it was quite chaotic at times right on the border. In fact, it was a situation where not a whole lot of law and order existed.

What many Americans didn’t know is that illegal immigration was an equally serious, if not worse, crisis in Europe. Launching political tidal waves. In Britain, the overflow, culture clashes, and terrorist attacks by illegal immigrants prompted Brexit— the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Liam Halligan: And they got quite scared, not because they’re intolerant of immigration, because this is an extremely tolerant country when it comes to immigration, but because it was pressing down on their wages. We hadn’t made the right plans in terms of housing, the health service, schools.

Brexit was just the beginning of a populist rise that would reshape European politics beyond Great Britain. We’ve reported from numerous countries where the immigration crisis became a driving issue for change.

Sharyl: Right now, we’re in Greek waters. But back there, where those lights are, that’s Turkey. At its closest point, it’s just a couple of miles away from Greece. And we’re sitting in a hot spot for picking up refugees.

Sharyl: Where do you want to go?

Man: I want to go to Germany.

By June of 2024, Germany was hosting 3.5 million refugees.

Sharyl: This refugee center in Berlin, Germany, is housed in an old hospital complex.

Sharyl: Where are they coming in from?

Sascha Langenbach: Well, the asylum seekers arrive here, mostly from Moldova, the Republic of Moldova, which is a neighboring state to Ukraine; Georgia, which is also a neighbor of Russia; and then Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and African countries, like Sudan, Ethiopia. The whole world.

Poland’s president Andrzej Duda told me Russia has been trafficking multitudes of people to create instability in his nation

President Duda: If someone comes over to Poland in the false perception that one will stay here and get everything free, and will have better life without working,’ well, we do not agree to such arrivals. No. If you want to live among us? Work. You want to live among us? Get yourself moving and do some work, earn some money. This is as simple as that.

The current immigration-driven populist rise includes Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

Prime Minister Meloni: Thousands of migrants allowed to enter without permission, who end up crowding out the slums of our towns and cities, undercutting the salaries of our own workers and, in many instances, engaging in crime.

Back in the US, Trump’s second term has already brought quick and dramatic results on America’s southern border.

Sharyl: I would say the border has to be very early in this administration. The single most tangible, quick impact people saw.

Trump: Yeah.

Sharyl: Are you satisfied with how that’s going so far?

President Trump: Yeah, I think they’re doing an incredible job. And it’s a tough job too. We have 99% improvement from Biden. So we have now the best border we’ve ever had, and we did that in a period of five weeks. Pretty amazing, actually.

In the first year of his second term, President Trump is still delivering on a promise first made a decade ago. and sticking by his guns on a message that’s only gained in global popularity– if not among all the leaders, certainly among many citizens.

President Trump: And while we will always have a big heart for places and people that are struggling and truly compassionate, answers will be given. We have to solve the problem, and we have to solve it in their countries, not create new problems in our countries.

Sharyl (on camera): In President Trump’s second term, illegal crossings from Mexico have fallen to historic lows.

Watch the video here.