Hungary's Orban proposes to ban migrants for two years

Hungary's right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orban, says that migration to the European Union country should be stopped. "Migrant armies are banging on all the gates of Europe," Orban said on state radio on Friday, June 11.

The prime minister also said that migration is especially dangerous in times of the coronavirus pandemic and so he has proposed that "no immigration whatsoever be allowed for two years."

'Inherently bad'

Orban said he believes that "migration is inherently bad" and people should be happy to be wherever they happen to have been born "according to God’s will."

The Hungarian leader has often made highly provocative statements in the past, including calling migrants "Muslim invaders" and claiming that "all terrorists are basically migrants."

Orban did not go into any further detail about how a two-year ban on immigration would be legally implemented.

In December last year the European Court of Justice ruled that Hungary’s asylum law was unlawful, because it offers those seeking protection practically no access to asylum procedures. In 2015, he had a barbed wire barrier constructed on the country’s border with Serbia and Croatia to stop migrants from crossing into Hungary.

Also read: Hungary's slow descent into xenophobia, racism and human rights abuses

According to its national statistics, Hungary was hosting around 194,000 foreigners with legal resident's status as of the beginning of 2021, dpa reports. This number includes more than 57,000 EU citizens, around 32,000 Ukrainians, 18,000 Chinese and 35,000 other nationals from Asian countries, according to the news agency.

If Orban’s migration ban were to take effect, it would mean that all foreign workers, companies and their families would also be affected. Given the rules allowing free movement between member states, it would be unlikely to include EU citizens, however.

With dpa