The U.S. has reduced illegal border crossings by 95 percent in two months. Now migration policy expert Kristen Ziccarelli reveals the recipe to Bulletin—and provides concrete advice for Sweden.
The illegal immigration numbers during Donald Trump’s first six months as president are staggering. During the Biden administration, 10,000 people crossed the U.S. southern border illegally every day. In June this year, the figure was down to 6,000—for an entire month.
”That’s a decrease of 94 to 95 percent. And absolutely no one who came here illegally has been released into the country in the past two months,” Kristen Ziccarelli told Bulletin.
Kristen Ziccarelli is Director of Global Coalitions and Senior Policy Analyst for Homeland Security and Immigration at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI). She has followed Trump’s migration policy since 2021 and sees clear lessons for Europe.
Courageous Leadership Crucial
According to Kristen Ziccarelli, the success is not about new laws but about political will.
”We didn’t need new laws to secure the border. We just needed a president with the will to enforce the laws on the books and to have the right posturing to talk about sovereignty and actually enforce the law,” she said.
Trump has implemented mass deportations, ended Biden’s programs for granting residence permits to illegals, classified Latin American drug cartels as terrorist organizations, and resumed border wall construction.
For European right-wing politicians, according to Kristen Ziccarelli, the most important lesson is Trump’s forceful action.
”What can be encouraging to them is seeing the courage of President Trump as just a leader to stand up for his people to protect sovereignty. President Trump is persevering amidst extraordinary pushback from all sectors of society in the U.S.,” she said.
”EU Policy Is Virtue Signaling”
Kristen Ziccarelli is critical of the EU migration pact and the idea of ”burden sharing” between member states.
”I’m thinking of some unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat in Brussels making that decision of who gets to come in their community. To me it just seems horribly unjust,” she said.
She calls EU policy ”virtue signaling” and believes that people all across the continent are coming to the realization that ”the open border experiment” has failed, instead creating crime, deeper social fragmentation, economic insecurity and cultural upheaval.
”It’s not mutually exclusive to uphold rule of law and sovereignty and to be compassionate. The virtue signalers will always say that we’re not compassionate, that we’re horrible people that hate immigrants, and it’s obviously not true,” Kristen Ziccarelli said.
Even Socialists Are Waking Up
Kristen Ziccarelli points out that even left-wing politicians in Europe are beginning to talk about migration as a problem. She particularly mentions Denmark’s Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen who pursues a restrictive migration policy.
”I think even someone like her, who is probably very different than like a Trump supporter, can see that illegal immigration is hurting workers in her country,” she said.
On the question of cultural differences, Ziccarelli is clear: the West should not tolerate immigrants who refuse to follow our cultural norms and laws.
”Before President Trump began enforcing the law at our borders, people were coming across from over 100 countries and many were forming their own enclaves of communities where they refuse to learn English and to practice our cultural norms and our mannerisms. That’s just unacceptable,” she said.
Her advice to Sweden and the EU is, in her view, simple: Be inspired by Donald Trump’s forceful policy and remove all incentives for illegal immigration. Only then can borders be truly secured, she argues.
