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.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Anshu Ahuja's golden coconut and butter bean curry recipeThe Week Recommends Plump, creamy beans in a sweet, spicy sauce
-
The treasure trove of platinum on the moonUnder the radar This kind of bounty could lead to commercial exploitation
-
Sudoku medium: June 23, 2025The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
-
ABC News to pay $15M in Trump defamation suitSpeed Read The lawsuit stemmed from George Stephanopoulos' on-air assertion that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll
-
Judge blocks Louisiana 10 Commandments lawSpeed Read U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled that a law ordering schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms was unconstitutional
-
ATF finalizes rule to close 'gun show loophole'Speed Read Biden moves to expand background checks for gun buyers
-
Hong Kong passes tough new security lawSpeed Read It will allow the government to further suppress all forms of dissent
-
France enshrines abortion rights in constitutionspeed read It became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right
-
Texas executes man despite contested evidenceSpeed Read Texas rejected calls for a rehearing of Ivan Cantu's case amid recanted testimony and allegations of suppressed exculpatory evidence
-
Supreme Court wary of state social media regulationsSpeed Read A majority of justices appeared skeptical that Texas and Florida were lawfully protecting the free speech rights of users
-
Greece legalizes same-sex marriageSpeed Read Greece becomes the first Orthodox Christian country to enshrine marriage equality in law
