Hungary starts arresting migrants as hard new laws take effect

On Tuesday, new laws went into force in Hungary, making it a crime to damage or circumvent the border fence Hungary is rushing to build on its border with Serbia and allowing border guards to turn away most migrants on the ground that Serbia is a safe enough haven for asylum-seekers. Border guards arrested at least 16 migrants who allegedly cut their way through the 13-foot-high razor-wire-topped fence. "As of today, illegal border crossing will be a crime, and a crime is a crime," said Zoltan Kovacs, a spokesman for Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Trying to beat the deadline, a record 9,380 migrants entered Hungary on Monday, following 5,809 on Sunday. Hungary filled busses and trains with the migrants and sent them to the border with Austria. So far this year, about 200,000 migrants have entered Hungary, but almost all of them have continued on to other European Union countries. On Monday, Germany and other EU countries put in place border checks, suspending the bloc's decades of internal open borders.

To stem that tide, Orban declared a state of emergency on Tuesday in two southern counties, allowing him to deploy the army to the border and the police to search homes suspected to house illegal immigrants. You can see scenes from the border in the video below. Peter Weber

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