Hungary Criminalizes Aiding Illegal Immigrants

Asylum seekers crossing the border between Hungary and Serbia in 2015. Few migrants have tried to enter Hungary in the years since, but Prime Minister Viktor Orban continues to present migration as a threat to the fabric of society.CreditSergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

The Hungarian Parliament approved a package of laws on Wednesday that criminalizes the act of helping undocumented migrants and creates a parallel court system that some fear will be used for politically sensitive cases, accelerating efforts by Prime Minister Viktor Orban to transform the country into what he calls an “illiberal democracy.”

The government named the legislation the “Stop Soros” bill, after the Hungarian-American financier and philanthropist George Soros, who has helped Hungarian rights organizations. It must be signed into law by President Janos Ader before it can take effect.

The laws are the first major measures to be passed since Mr. Orban, who campaigned on a nationalist, anti-immigrant platform, led his far-right party, Fidesz, to an increased parliamentary majority in April, in an election that observers said was free but not fair.

Their passage came on World Refugee Day, five days after Mr. Orban spoke by telephone with President Trump, who is coming under intense criticism in the United States for his policy of separating migrant childrenfrom their parents, and incarcerating them, after they cross the southern American border.

NYTimes