Ever since 2015, the difficulties of deportation in the wake of expulsion orders have threatened the viability of the asylum system, Chief Security Advisor to the Prime Minister György Bakondi said on the public service television news channel M1 on Wednesday.

Therefore, the Hungarian government takes the view that illegal immigrants must be stopped at Europe’s external borders, he stressed.

In the European Union, a new European migration policy is currently being shaped in which the Hungarian government is playing an active part. Ever since the beginning of the migration crisis, it has been a problem as to what should happen to immigrants who are not eligible for political asylum; however, it is to be hoped that the new package will bring about some progress also in this regard, he added.

Applicants seeking political asylum should cooperate with the recipient countries, but this is not the case; migrants arriving in Europe throw away their documents and often make untrue claims regarding their identities, Mr Bakondi pointed out.

On Kossuth Radio’s programme ‘Good morning, Hungary,’ the chief advisor said it is often impossible to successfully deport migrants from Western Europe.

The expulsion procedure is very difficult and extremely time-consuming. If a person is not granted refugee status in the West, some countries seek to financially incentivise them to return home; however, a few weeks later, the very same persons set out for Europe again, he said.

Another possibility is that the authorities obligate illegal immigrants to leave on a voluntary basis, but they rarely do so. The third possibility is the enforced implementation by law enforcement agencies of the expulsion order; in this case, however, the issuer country must agree to receive the person, Mr Bakondi said, observing that this, too, rarely happens.

(MTI/Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister)