Sorry, That’s the Wrong Kind of ‘Invasion’
Team Trump keeps mum about Russia’s attack on Ukraine—but fixates on how immigrants ‘threaten’ Europe’s future.
ON SATURDAY, AT A CEREMONY in France commemorating D-Day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned of a new invasion of Europe. He didn’t mention Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. But he did bring up migration to Europe from Africa and the Middle East, which he compared to the Allies’ invasion of Normandy in 1944.
“Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies: beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria,” Hegseth lamented. “Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late?”
There’s no legitimate reason why an American secretary of defense would ignore a military invasion of a European country while raising alarms about immigration. But there’s an obvious illegitimate reason: Under Donald Trump, the U.S. government isn’t particularly interested in challenging Russian aggression. It’s more interested in keeping Muslims and Africans out of Europe and the United States.
You don’t need implicit bias training to figure out what’s going on in this administration. It’s blatant. From Trump’s diatribe against “shithole countries” to his rants against Somali “garbage” to his obsession with immigration from Congo, the pattern is as obvious as the skin on his face.
THE PRESIDENT ROUTINELY INSISTS that the top two threats to Europe are windmills and immigrants. “Between immigration and energy, they’re destroying it. It’s not recognizable,” Trump declared at a cabinet meeting in January, referring to Europe. In February, at the National Prayer Breakfast, he grumbled, “Their energy is ridiculous, what they’ve done, and the immigration is—I’m telling you, it’s a place where many of these countries are not recognizable.” The word recognizable, when uttered by Trump, has become a transparent euphemism for white.
And he’s done more than talk. Trump has systematically barred black and brown refugees from the United States. For six consecutive months, his administration has allowed white South Africans to gain asylum while rejecting all other applicants.
Meanwhile, as Russian forces slaughter Europeans, Trump defends Vladimir Putin. In April, Trump rebuked the Obama administration and our European allies for casting Putin out of the G8. “He was very offended by that,” said Trump—and “rightfully” so.
A week later, Trump insisted, as he often does, that Putin was a man of peace. “We had a good talk. I’ve known him a long time,” Trump argued. He claimed that to settle the Ukraine war, Putin “was ready to make a deal a while ago. I think some people made it difficult for him to make a deal.”
In May, Trump called Joe Biden a “stupid fool” for sending military aid to Ukraine. The former president’s decision to give that matériel away for free was “ridiculous,” he scoffed. Last week, Trump repeated that objection, and he reaffirmed his neutrality in the war. Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were “two very good people,” Trump asserted. “I want them each to make certain compromises.”
Trump isn’t alone in fretting about migration while brushing off the threat from Russia. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Hegseth have joined in.
In 2024, when Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the Munich Security Conference, she denounced “Putin’s war” and pledged to send more aid to Ukraine. A year later, speaking at the same conference, Vance delivered a very different message. He called for a “reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine,” choosing not to take sides. “The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia,” he said. He went on:
Of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. . . . The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone.1 And of course, it’s gotten much higher since. . . . All over Europe, they’re voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration. Now, I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns.
This year, Rubio represented the United States at the Munich conference. Like Vance, he barely mentioned the Ukraine war, and only to express a neutral goal: to “bring the two sides to the table.” Instead, Rubio focused on immigration, as Vance had. He warned that Europe and America “opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people.”
Neither Vance nor Rubio used the word illegal. Their complaint wasn’t about immigrants breaking the law. It was about the volume of immigrants and the “continuity of our culture.” That’s a fancy way of saying the West is for white people.
Hegseth is sending the same message. Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, spoke up for Ukraine when he addressed a D-Day anniversary ceremony in 2023. But last year, when Hegseth spoke at two D-Day events, he said nothing about the Ukraine war. In fact, at one point, where his script referred to “the U.K.,” he accidentally said “the Ukraine” before chuckling and correcting himself. The Department of Defense even cleaned up the transcript—which purports to document Hegseth’s remarks “as delivered”—to omit the word Ukraine.
At this year’s D-Day ceremony, Hegseth made no such slips. He never mentioned Russia or Ukraine. The only “invasion” he spoke about was migration across the Mediterranean.
Why would America’s defense secretary, on the anniversary of the landing at Normandy, decry migration while ignoring the biggest war in Europe since World War II? For the same reason he has sidelined nonwhite officers and purged DEI. His principal agenda isn’t military. It’s ethnic and cultural.
More than 4,400 Allied troops died on D-Day. They gave their lives to defeat a regime that judged people by race and religion. Let’s not dishonor them by allowing that sickness to spread in or from the government of the United States.
How many of those immigrants were refugees fleeing Ukraine—or Russians fleeing the draft—Vance didn’t specify.
Citing culture as an opposition to legal immigration (distinct from border security) is just a socially acceptable way of embracing racism
Will, I agree with everything you write in this essay re Trump, Hegseth and Ukraine. However, I think you're leaving out the threat to Europe from Radical (not all) Islam oriented migrants, whether legal or illegal. Who are disproportionately misogynistic, homophobic and favourable toward Sharia Law (per survey data). This is not a racial issue per se. I would like to see this topic discussed more on the Bulwark. Thank you.