Deport migrants to camps outside EU, Hungarian PM says

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Thursday that migrants who have entered the EU illegally should be deported to camps outside the bloc, such as on an island, or on the north African coast.

"Whoever came in illegally should be gathered together and taken out, not to other countries, but outside the EU," Orban said in an interview with the Hungarian Origo.hu website.

Those expelled could submit asylum claims from "large refugee camps" that must be set up, funded, and guarded by the EU outside the bloc's territory, he said, suggesting an island or the north African coastline as potential locations.

"The security of and provision for that territory must be guaranteed by the EU in its own interest," Orban said.

Asylum-seekers should then stay there until an EU country agrees to take them in, he added.

The idea builds on proposals made by Orban in April dubbed "Schengen 2.0" that included increasing EU border defenses and handling refugee cases outside of the bloc.

The Hungarian premier, one of the fiercest critics of the EU's handling of the migration crisis, called those proposals a bid to save the bloc's passport-free Schengen zone.

Last September, Hungary erected wire fences on its southern borders to keep out migrants. It has also brought in tough laws to prosecute "illegal border-crossers" and tightened its rules on asylum-seeking...
 [AFP/i24news.tv]
22/9/16