Original subtitles

President Trump's immigration policy,

including a proposed border wall

and what's been called a "Muslim ban,"

sent shock waves around the world.

We are going to stop

the Syrian refugees

from entering the United States.

We want Trump!

But these issues are not uniquely American.

The European Union is grappling with a similar breed

of populist politics with far-right candidates

making huge gains across Europe.

Fear of foreigners

or doubts about economic management

have led to a rise in extremist populist parties.

Great Britain has already decided

to leave the EU altogether

and the fight over immigration

could determine Europe's political course

for years to come.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government

has put this European Union border country on lockdown.

A 181-mile border fence was built in 2015

to stop the flow of refugees from entering the country

from Serbia or Croatia.

National Police chief Károly Papp

oversees Hungary's border control operations.

How effective is the police operation down there?

Hungary's crime rate was actually on the decline

prior to the fence being built,

but rural farmers in border towns

were facing practical issues

as the flow of refugees increased.

How have things changed here in the last few years?

In order to justify closing what used to be an open border,

Prime Minister Orbán amplifies the farmer's fear,

citing terror threats as the primary reason.

As Europe sees more and more attacks

by ISIS affiliated terrorists,

populists put the blame on the increased influx

of refugees from the Middle East.

As a result, thousands of refugees

are now being stopped at the border.

What's it like to police this area?

After the fence was built,

refugee camps started forming

on the Serbian side of the border,

where migrants wait for their opportunity

to sneak into Hungary.

Hi.

Hello.

How are you?

How old are you?

Your age.

11. All right.

Where are you from?

Afghanistan.

Nice to meet you.

These children,

they're--they're not terrorists, are they?

That must make you feel something when you see them.

These decisions come directly from the Hungarian government.

While many other EU countries

followed Germany's lead in welcoming the refugees,

Hungary surged to the right, sealing its borders.

We sat down with Orbán's spokesman

to find out why.

Why did Hungary see it as its responsibility

to be the bastions of law and order

for the European Union,

when Angela Merkel had said

that refugees--

Use--use the proper terms

because up until they have a legal status

everybody should be called a migrant.

As a matter of fact, an illegal migrant.

The European Union is a community of states

in which there are rules, and that was our major problem,

actually, with the German position.

How can you request, without our consent,

that you don't follow the rules?

Do you think that refugees have a right to come to Europe?

Nowhere in international law is it suggested

that you have the right of freedom without authorization.

You're not allowed to be naive on that.

Quite a number of the perpetrators

of the Paris attacks

and the bombing at the Brussels airport,

they're coming through Hungary

using basically the illegal flow of migrants

to the European Union.

That's a serious breach of security.

There are many who,

under the camouflage of a religion,

extremists would like to wipe out a civilization.

As Mr. Schuman put it,

one of the founding fathers of the European Union,

"Europe will be or should be Christian,

or will not be."

If you want to get rid of the core values,

then you are getting rid of

the original sense of that community.

Across the EU, far-right candidates

are using the immigration debate

to push a nationalist agenda

that's threatening the very existence

of the EU itself.

The past few years have shown

the biggest increase in votes

for nationalist and populist parties

in Europe since World War II.

Following Trump's victory in the U.S.,

the world's eyes turned to the next election

with a far-right candidate: Austria,

where Independent Alexander Van Der Bellen

was fending off Norbert Hofer of Austria's Freedom Party.

Suddenly, the left-leaning country

was on the brink of electing a far-right president

for the first time in decades.

Norbert Hofer, a gun loving,

anti Islam populist

representing the Freedom Party,

founded by Ex-Nazis.

Among the founding members of the Freedom Party

was high-ranking SS general Anton Reinthaller

who founded the party

to strengthen nationalist interests

in post World War II Austria.

We traveled to Austria

as one of Europe's most polarizing elections

reached its climax.

We're in Vienna, where one of the most divisive elections

in Austria's recent history is about to come to an end.

Whether the people here decide to go left or right

will also decide what might happen

to the future of the European Union.

How much is Islamophobia playing in this election?

Lena took me to a campaign appearance

by Hofer's opponent Alexander Van Der Bellen.

Alexander Van Der Bellen!

Across town, Hofer was also focused on immigration,

but took a hard-line approach to the crisis.

With the candidates neck-and-neck,

both sides were out in full force

before the final presidential debate.

Hofer!

It's just before the final presidential debate

and supporters of the two candidates

are here in a face-off.

What this says about what's going to happen inside

we'll see.

Mr. Hofer, how will it feel to become Europe's first

far-right leader since the war?

Umm, first of all, I'm not the leader,

and second I'm not far-right.

So why do people describe you as that?

They don't know me. Not yet.

As is tradition in Austria's presidential elections,

the press and both candidates' teams

gather to watch the final debate backstage

while eating wieners and drinking beer.

But what started as a strange Austrian barbecue

gave way to something that was bizarre

even by U.S. standards.

We've just sat through the final presidential debate

before the elections.

The only word that I really understood

throughout the whole thing was the word "Nazi."

We're now sitting in the spin room afterwards

where the two candidates are here.

Hofer, behind me, is sitting around with his team,

smoking cigarettes, drinking glasses of wine.

I've never seen anything really like this.

Some people have described you as an anti-establishment figure.

Is that accurate?

What happens in the end of this--this campaign?

The people, they will, uh, vote.

Wow.

I mean, people are crying here.

It's clear that it means so much to people.

Does this feel like a different Austria now?

No, because I know that there's still,

like, nearly 50% who voted for Hofer, so...

No. Actually, you have--

you still have to consider, actually there is

50% super racist people in Austria.

While Hofer lost in Austria,

the fierce political divide has spread across Europe.

In France, a formerly fringe candidate,

Marine Le Pen, came in second place

on an anti-immigration platform

that could have seen France leave the EU.

But the most important election will be in Germany,

the unofficial leader of the EU,

which took in more refugees

than any other European country.

As a result, the once peripheral

far-right populist AfD party emerged

in direct opposition to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Since World War II,

being ultra-right-wing has been taboo in Germany,

yet the AfD is gaining power

by exploiting the sharp increase in conflicts

between refugees and locals.

In 2016, the German Ministry of Interior

reported more than 3 1/2 thousand attacks

on refugees and shelters throughout the country.

The rural town of Bautzen,

is capturing headlines

with particularly violent clashes.

Onlookers celebrated as a fire ripped through

a former hotel that was being converted

into a shelter for refugees.

Sebastian Berg is well connected

with the local right wing community.

We joined him and his local AfD representative

on a tour of the embattled town.

While the right wing claims that locals need

to protect themselves from refugees,

the town's largest refugee center

had to build its own fence

to protect the refugees from angry locals.

What's the problem with a place like this?

We went to meet some of the refugees

that the locals were living in fear of.

While the majority of migrants we saw were families,

much of the fear is of single young men.

Firas has mastered the language,

but is still facing backlash

as he tries to integrate into society.

Hello, how are you?

- How are you? - Nice to meet you.

- Yeah. - I'm Ben.

This young family fled the resulting chaos

of the U.S. war in Iraq.

Why are you here?

Mama.

With over a million refugees settled in Germany since 2015,

and anti-immigrant sentiment on the rise,

the AfD and their leader,

Frauke Petry, are using the issue

in their bid to unseat Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Do you think Angela Merkel has improved Germany

- since her time in power? - No, I don't think she has.

Because she opened the border for illegal migration,

to more than a million people in 2015.

Many of them cannot read, have not finished school.

Many of them will be completely dependent

for the rest of their lives on social benefits,

and if government tells us,

as Merkel did in Autumn 2015,

that we do not have the control about our borders,

we don't have the control about who lives in German,

that is basically the complete failing of a state.

Why was immigration a central policy

for Trump and for BREXIT

and for the AfD here in Germany?

Immigration was not

a central topic when we started--

But it's become one for you, personally.

It's become more important

because situation changed dramatically.

Why do you think there's an appetite

for anti-establishment politics in Germany now?

We have many statistics seen over the last couple of years

of people not trusting politicians anymore.

What did politics do over the last couple of decades

to make people feel excluded?

I think many citizens are fed up

with politicians not talking to them,

but talking about them

and not taking them seriously,

and that is something that many people in Europe do not like.

So, yes, I think it gains momentum,

and I hope it will gain even more.

"Vice" has been following the rise

of the far-right in Europe for many years.

We watched and reported

as nationalism exploded

in response to the migrant crisis

currently facing Europe.

You wanna keep the Greek race clean.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

was in many ways modern Europe's original populist.

He gained massive support from Italian media outlets,

many of which he owned,

and cultivated a large political base

by clamping down on immigration and embracing isolationism.

I met him at his home in Italy

to talk about what the future holds

for European politics.

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

is one of the most outspoken critics

of allowing immigrants from Syria

and other war-torn countries into Europe.

The former leader of Italy was

the longest sitting prime minster

in modern Italian history,

and though his political career was marred

with controversy, fraud, and scandal...

He was also one of the original far-right candidates,

using fear of immigration to great success,

which set the mold for other populous candidates in Europe.

So you look at what happened in Austria recently,

a far-right party came second, but nearly came first,

and now you have the rise of the far-right in Germany.

Should Europe be worried

about this sort of rise of the far-right

in Austria and Germany?

Now what we've seen this season is that

this anger is often rooted in the immigration issue,

and it's not just Hungary, Austria, and Germany...

Oh, shit.

But also in France where opposition has surged

against the migrant population,

and here in Berlusconi's home country of Italy,

hundreds of thousands of refugees

cross the Mediterranean

to begin their long journey north

into the EU.

You have millions of people coming from Syria,

from North Africa, from Afghanistan.

Italy is on the frontlines.

How much is it affecting Italian politics?

But even larger, how much is this affecting

politics in Europe?

Now what he means when he references the Marshall Plan

is approximately the $130 billion aid project,

which rebuilt war-devastated regions

of Western Europe in the aftermath of World War II.

Now the idea is that

the only way to stop immigration

is to actually stop the issues

that are causing it at their source.

But while he calls for a unified plan,

other European politicians are running campaigns

for a more divided Europe.

I interviewed Marine Le Pen in 2012

as she first began to declare her anti-immigration

isolationist populist platform.

Le Pen has since made a huge leap

as this formerly French candidate

went on to come in second place in the French elections,

and her party is not backing down.

Europe, America, maybe even the world

has a history of going left and then going right,

and then going left and then going right.

Right now we seem to be taking a step to the right.

Why do you think that is?

Where do you see the future of politics going

in the EU

and what do you worry most about?

What are your biggest fears?