"As the number of illegal border crossings continues to skyrocket — reaching nearly 72,000 already this year — Hungary is taking additional measures to address the challenge, introducing new laws that will help identify more quickly the genuine asylum seekers who deserve protection and manage more effectively those who are attempting to immigrate illegally.
Last month’s EU summit offered some progress. It softened up on the quota system on member states, giving Hungary and Bulgaria special exemptions, but more importantly it affirmed that extraordinary circumstances — like this huge increase in illegal immigration — sometimes require extraordinary measures, and individual member states should be free to act as appropriate. Afterall, Hungary’s borders are also the EU’s borders.
New legislation introduced in parliament earlier this week aims to do just that. The bill attempts to crack down on those who try to exploit the asylum rules to immigrate illegally. It speeds up and makes more cost-effective the procedure for investigating the identity of asylum seekers and, importantly, allows authorities to detain asylum seekers until court proceedings on their cases are completed. That was something we could not do under the EU rules, which made it easy for those crossing the border illegally to simply claim asylum and then disappear, often moving on to another EU country.
The legislation also allows Hungary to deny refugee status based on a national security risk exemption and limits the rights of those who have submitted asylum requests multiple times. Under the new law, those who have requested refugee status may be employed in the public work scheme.
The decisions adopted at the EU summit at the end of June are in line with the interests of Hungary and the Hungarian people, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told press at the conclusion of the summit."