‘Bad people' coming to Britain on small boats, Trump warns
Mr Trump met the Prime Minister at his golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, where the pair discussed the conflict in Gaza.
The Prime Minister arrived with his wife, Lady Starmer, to the sound of bagpipes and was greeted by Mr Trump before the two leaders went inside for talks.
Asked about the Channel crisis, Mr Trump said: 'If you're stopping immigration and stopping the wrong people my hats are off to you, you're doing not a good thing, but a fantastic thing. But I know nothing about the boats.
'But if the boats are loaded up with bad people, and they usually are because other countries don't send their best, they send people that they don't want. And they're not stupid people and they send the people that they don't want and I've heard you've taken a much stronger stance on this.'
Warning that Europe was 'a much different place' from five years ago, the president added: 'This is a magnificent part of the world, and you cannot ruin it, you cannot let people come here illegally.
'And what happens is there'll be murderers, there'll be drug dealers, there'll be all sorts of things that other countries don't want and they send them to you and they send them to us and you've got to stop them and I hear you've taken a very strong stand on immigration. And taking a strong stand on immigration is imperative.'
According to Home Office provisional statistics, almost 24,000 people have arrived on small boats in the UK in 2025.
Asylum seekers working illegally
The Prime Minister has taken an increasingly hard line on immigration after Reform UK made huge gains across the country in May's local elections.
Last week, Sir Keir announced that the Government would share the locations of asylum accommodation with food delivery firms so 'they can take action if riders are staying there'.
The move was unveiled after it emerged that significant numbers of asylum seekers were working illegally as food delivery riders.
But in the last week, the Government has also been forced to grapple with anti-immigration protests outside an asylum hotel in Essex.
Demonstrators gathered outside the Bell Hotel in Epping after an asylum seeker was charged with allegedly attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl.
Some 32,000 asylum seekers are being housed in around 210 hotels, according to the latest Home Office data from March.
This compares with just under 30,000 last June, days before Labour won the election, but down from the peak of 56,000 at 400 hotels in September 2023 at a cost of £9 million a day.
Elsewhere during the meeting, Mr Trump said that while he did not mind Sir Keir taking a position on formally recognising Palestine as a state, he would not do so himself and that getting food into Gaza was his priority.
He went on to argue the US should have been thanked for its support for the Middle East and that the international community had failed to do so.
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