When a front page story ran on October 2nd declaring that "Hungary intends to stop migrants with 'hunters' near border wall," government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács had to set the record straight.
Writing on the Washington Post's website, Kovács said that to call Hungary’s civilian border patrol force “hunters” is an incorrect translation. They, in fact, provide additional protection on what has become one of Europe’s most sensitive frontiers in the struggle against illegal immigration and human trafficking.
The Western Balkan migration route, and specifically Hungary’s southern border, became the busiest transit route for illegal immigration into the European Union in 2015, according to the European Union’s border protection agency, Frontes. Yet Hungary is supposedly “instilling . . . fear” and “mainstreaming racism.”
Kovács writes that the article failed to mention that last year, before the border fence was built, the Islamic State exploited the porous borders into the European Union.
If anyone would like a glimpse at a “world where the build-a-wall mentality to keep migrants out rules the land,” the United States’ southern border, which is reinforced in several places by a wall and other barriers, is a good place to start.
Read more here.