Crossing the border in an illicit manner will be a crime from the middle of September and will be sanctioned, the Minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office said on Friday in Kiszombor, near the Romanian border.
Following the inauguration of a new bicycle path, János Lázár told reporters that the Government would make a detailed report to Parliament’s Committee for Defence and Law Enforcement on 1 September on the effectiveness of the rapid deployment border closure and the actions of police who have been stationed along the border.
The Government will recommend that Parliament adopts the restrictive bills put forward on Friday.
Following a two-week grace period, i.e. after 15 September, the situation along the border will be clear. “Following the end of the grace period, crossing the border in an illicit manner will be a crime and will be sanctioned”, Mr. Lázár said.
With reference to the border crossing points planned by the Government, the Minster said every immigrant will be asked to report to one of these border crossing points. Transit zones will be set up at these border crossing points, the task of which will be to receive immigrants and enable the Office of Immigration and Nationality to rapidly process their cases. People who enter the country in this manner will be processed fairly and correctly in accordance with Hungarian and European Union law”, he stressed.
Immigrants should not enter the country illegally, but via one of the border crossing points, where they can submit their request for refugee status and where they can ask to enter the territory of the European Union, he declared.
According to the Minister, people who apply for refugee status at these special border crossing points will receive protection, which in their case means care and accommodation until such time as their refugee request is processed. If, however, their application is rejected, they will not be able to enter Hungary as the police will not allow them to do so.
At the press conference, Mr. Lázár also replied to a question from the press regarding the facts behind reports that the driver of the heavy goods vehicle found in Austria containing the bodies of some 50 migrants may have been a Romanian citizen.
The Minister said that on Thursday the Cabinet had to all intents and purposes been in continuous contact with the Austrian police. The possibility that the driver may have been a Romanian citizen arose during the identification of the truck’s number plate. As the investigation continued, many often conflicting pieces of information were uncovered, as is always the case with criminal investigations. In this case, we are clearly dealing with a human trafficking network, he added.
(MTI)
