U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lays a wreath of flowers to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings on June 6, 2026.
Jeremias Gonzalez/AP

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used a D-Day anniversary speech on Saturday to appear to link immigration by sea to the wartime liberation of Europe, warning that the freedom won by Allied troops could prove temporary if leaders failed to defend it.

Hegseth, speaking at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer in northwestern France during commemorations for the 82nd anniversary of the June 6, 1944, landings, said that today, "different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies."

"Beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive," he said.

"When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late?" he added. "I pray not, and I believe not."

Hegseth also laid a wreath of flowers as part of a ceremony commemorating the landings.

Hegseth did not use the word immigration, but his remarks echoed broader Trump administration criticism of Europe over migration, borders and what U.S. officials have described as censorship of nationalist and far-right voices.

On Saturday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office condemned U.S. Vice President JD Vance for blaming immigration for the killing of Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old British student stabbed to death in Southampton, even though both Nowak and his killer were British.

In December, the Trump administration's national security strategy warned that Europe faced the "prospect of civilizational erasure" and could become "unrecognizable" within 20 years.

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