Fence on Hungary's border does not stop flow of illegal migrants
According to Hungarian Prime Minister's security advisor György Bakondi, after detained illegal migrants are brought back to the border, they will be directed to the nearest 'transit zone.' Once there, migrants can submit an official asylum request to Hungarian authorities and await a decision.
The so-called 'transit zones' are located in border areas on the other side of the fence built in 2015 to fully seal the border with Croatia and Serbia. According to a law passed in summer 2015, illegal crossing of Hungary's border is considered a criminal offense. Offenders face trial and punishment of up to three years' imprisonment, or up to five years if the border fence is damaged.
According to Bakondi, court rulings on such crimes have been issued 4,942 times, most often resulting in deportation of migrants to Croatia or Serbia, which was difficult to implement because those countries do not take back refugees. Since the beginning of this year, 17,351 illegal migrants have crossed Hungary's border. For the whole of 2015, there were about 391,000. Out of 199,000 asylum requests submitted, Hungary made positive decisions in only 264 cases.
In October, Hungary will hold a referendum in which the country's residents will be asked whether they want the EU to have the right to dictate how many migrants the country must accept. This was announced by the country's president, János Áder. Budapest's intention to hold a referendum on migrants became known in February 2016. Then Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that the decision to hold the plebiscite was a response to 'public sentiment.' He called the introduction of migrant quotas 'without appropriate public support' an 'excess of power.'
According to an EU decision on distributing 120,000 refugees, Hungary must accept about 2,000 migrants within two years. At the end of 2015, Budapest appealed to the European Court of Justice to annul the quota system.