Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó has explained how Hungary slashed illegal immigration by building strong border barriers and praised U.S. President Donald Trump in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.
Hungary, a conservative-led Central European country with a population of around ten million, found itself overwhelmed in late 2015 when Germany’s Angela Merkel took it upon herself to invite millions of migrants to the European Union unilaterally.
Hundreds of thousands surged across Hungary’s southern frontier — one of the EU’s external borders — trampling farmers’ crops and stealing food from vegetable patches and greenhouses. Some later turned out to be radical Islamic terrorists, including over ten of the jihadists involved in the Bataclan massacre in Paris.
“It was terrible, there were 400,000 illegal migrants violating our border, and violation of a border means disrespect towards a country,” Mr Szijjártó told Breitbart’s Amanda House.
“They have rejected any kind of co-operation with the local authorities; they have not gone to the designated areas for migrants; they have occupied public areas; they have threatened the people; with their behaviour they have frightened the people,” he added.
“They have occupied railway stations, blocked railway lines, blocked highways… These people who came to Hungary as illegal migrants showed no respect towards our regulations, towards the way of life of ours, towards the rules of behaviour, towards our culture, towards our people, and this is unacceptable.”
“We consider border protection as an obligation of the state, because it is an obligation of the state to ensure the security of the country and the security of the people,” the Hungarian explained, describing how Prime Minister Viktor Orbán resolved the crisis by rapidly constructing and then steadily reinforcing a series of layered border barriers.
“When we were faced with this phenomenon of a massive influx of illegal migrants we made it very clear that we need to build some kind of an infrastructure on our border, in order to make sure that no illegal migrants enter the territory of the country,” he explained.
“Basically, what I can tell you is that regardless of the continuous attempt to break in, we were successful to protect the border, because if you have physical infrastructure, and you have well-trained personnel there, you can basically make it impossible for people to violate your border.”
The Hungarian government illustrated the success of its border barrier with the following table provided by Secretary of State for International Communications Zoltán Kovács, showing a precipitous and sustained drop in illegal border crossings since it was constructed and steadily reinforced:
2014: 44,709
2015: 391,384
2016: 18,236
2017: 1,418
2018 (until 20 December): 441
Mr Szijjártó also told Breitbart that Hungary also considers border control “as a sovereignty issue; it must be only us to make a decision whom we allow to come to the territory of our country, and we must be the only ones who make a decision with whom we would like to live together.”
On the subject of U.S. President Donald Trump’s parallel struggle to secure funding for serious border security from Congress, the Hungarian said he was loath to “lecture” its NATO ally, as his government has had its own fill of unsolicited advice — but offered that “just as an observer, I can tell you that [President Trump’s] approach towards security, towards border protection, is very similar compared to ours.”
“We really do understand his endeavour to protect the people and the country of the United States from illegal migration, and if you put it as a professional type of a question, I can tell you that we have understood it very clearly from our own example — and our border which we have to protect is much shorter compared to your southern border, which is under pressure — we understood that without a physical infrastructure, basically it is impossible, it is impossible to make sure that no illegal migrants come in,” Szijjártó added.
“So we understand his endevaour very much, and what I can tell you is that since we consider the United States as an ally and as a friend, the only thing we can do is cross our fingers that he succeeds with protecting the citizens of the United States… We can just hope to the benefit of the American people that he’s going to be successful there, without any kind of willingness to interfere into domestic issues,” he concluded.
Watch Breitbart Deputy Political Editor Amanda House’s Interview with Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó in full here.