Hungary’s Prime Minister warned the stream of migrants entering Europe are “trojan wooden horses” for terrorism and a threat to the cultural identity of the continent’s historic nations.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a fierce critic of the open-door migrant policy promoted by the European Union, suggested terrorists are using the stream of migrants as a cover to enter Europe and launch attacks.
“Migration is the Trojan wooden horse of terrorism,” Orban said at a swearing-in ceremony for new border guards. “The people that come to us don’t want to live according to our culture and customs but according to their own – at European standards of living.”
Orban argued the migrant crisis will continue because issues in the migrants’ countries of origin have not been addressed.
“We are still, at this moment, under siege,” he said. “The migration flow has only slowed but is not over. We have gained time to strengthen our lines of defense.”
Lawmakers from Oban’s ruling Fidesz party, along with members of the right-wing Jobbick party, recently agreed to give police more authority to send migrants back to Serbia.
Under the draft agreement, all migrants in Hungary who are unable to produce documentation proving their legal right to be in the country can be deported to the Serbian border. Previously, only migrants found within eight kilometers of the Serbian border could be sent back.
The law would also make it mandatory for authorities to detain all migrants in camps along the Serbian border until their applications for asylum are processed.
“It is the newest step of a very aggressive crackdown on refugees in Hungary,” said Todor Gardos, an expert on Hungary with Amnesty International.
In response to the wave of migrants entering Europe, Orban ordered the construction of fences along the borders with Croatia and Serbia in 2015. A second fence, equipped with motion and heat sensors, is set for completion along the Serbian border by May.
“Everything which is now taking place before our eyes threatens to have explosive consequences for the whole of Europe,” Orban said in 2015. “We must acknowledge that the European Union’s misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation.”
“We shouldn’t forget that the people who are coming here grew up in a different religion and represent a completely different culture. Most are not Christian, but Muslim…. That is an important question, because Europe and European culture have Christian roots.”
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