Trump doubles down on hardline immigration stance: 'Just look at what has happened to Europe - a total mess'

Polls suggest the president's approval rating is increasing

Donald Trump has doubled down on his hardline stance on immigration, claiming Europe had become “a total mess” over the past five years and saying the US would never accept people entering the country illegally.

In the latest indication Mr Trump and the Republicans have decided stoking fears about illegal immigration will be their most effective weapon in the midterm elections, and buoyed by numbers showing his approval rating is increasing, the president criticised the situation in Europe.

“For those who want and advocate for illegal immigration, just take a good look at what has happened to Europe over the last 5 years. A total mess! They only wish they had that decision to make over again,” he tweeted on Wednesday morning.

“We are a great sovereign nation. We have strong borders and will never accept people coming into our country illegally!”

In recent days, the presence of a migrant caravan overwhelmingly made up of people fleeing violence and poverty in the central American nations of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatamala, has seized the president’s attention. He has claimed the convoy, estimated to contain between 7,000-10,000 people.

In one tweet, he claimed “unknown Middle Easterners” were in the caravan. While migrants from as far away as Syria, Iraq and Somalia do seek to enter the US via the US border with Mexico, US security agencies told NBC that nobody had yet triggered a terror-warning - something many believed Mr Trump was hinting at in his comments.

Asked later about his comment about people from the Middle East - many of which are included in his administration’s travel ban - he told reporters: “Unfortunately, they have a lot of everybody in that group…..We’ve gotta stop them at the border and, unfortunately, you look at the countries, they have not done their job.”

This is not the first time Mr Trump has criticised the immigration policies of Europe. This summer he said voters in Germany were turning Angela Merkel’s government, tweeting “the people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition”.

During the US presidential campaign, Mr Trump called Mr Merkel’s decision to keep open the country’s borders to Syrian refugees in the summer of 2015 “insane”.

He also sparked controversy in Sweden where he claimed - falsely - during a 2017 rally in Florida there had been a terror attack in Sweden and suggested it had been carried out by immigrants. There had been no such attack.

Asked about it this spring by a Swedish journalist, Mr Trump doubled down.

“Certainly you have a problem with the immigration,” he said. “It's caused problems in Sweden. I was one of the first ones to say it. I took a little heat, but that was okay, because I proved to be right.”

Polls show Mr Trump’s approval rating has risen in recent weeks, with analysts attributing this to the strong economy, his defence of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his tough language on immigration.

The website Five Thirty Eight puts his approval rating at 43.1 per cent, the highest it’s been since March 2017.