Hungary backs US conservatives on border wall as illegal immigration skyrockets: 'You have to do it'

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Hungarian Foreign Minister says he sees similarities with US on border crisis

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó stressed the importance of physical barriers during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto offered his support to U.S. conservatives pushing for more border security – including a wall at the southern border – saying that his own country has shown the importance of physical infrastructure.

Szijjarto visited Texas last week before heading to New York for the U.N. General Assembly and told Fox News Digital in an interview that there are "many similarities" between the migration challenges facing the two countries. 

He said that while the U.S.-Mexico border is much longer than the Hungarian border, they have both faced significant pressure from migration and efforts to prevent border security measures from being implemented.

Hungary was at the forefront of the 2015 European migration crisis and responded by ramping up its border security even as it took significant criticism from human rights groups and the European Union in doing so. He told Fox News Digital that physical infrastructure, whether it be the buoys set up by Texas in the Rio Grande or the wall built during the Trump-era, is vital.

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Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto speaks during an interview in Ankara, Turkey, on May 3, 2023. (Omer Taha Cetin / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

"You have built some infrastructure to protect [the border], and this is the only way," he said. "So, if you do not build a physical infrastructure with simple manpower, it is absolutely impossible to protect your border. So, physical infrastructure – be the fence, be the wall or be the buoys on the water – you have to do it, otherwise you are defenseless."

He noted the opposition that efforts to build physical barriers – by Hungary, by the U.S. under the Trump administration or at the state level under Texas Gov. Greg Abbott – have faced from left-wing politicians and media outlets, which he tied to deeper divisions between left and right over the importance of migration, national identity and sovereignty. Hungary has faced reprimands from the European Union over its policies, which courts have ruled clash with EU law.

"What we also see is that the liberals are pushing for migration to take place, migration to increase because, for them, it's not a problem to lose the identity and the character of a nation," he said.

He said Hungary is sticking to a right to decide who enters the country, calling it a "sovereign decision" to maintain the "character and the identity" of the country.

"We simply do not want to change the nature of the country. Hungary must remain the country of the Hungarians, and I understand that the conservatives, the Republicans here and in Texas, are standing up for this as well, and we understand that the liberals are going against [them], so it's very similar in Hungary and in the U.S.," he said.

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Szijjarto said Hungary is facing "enormously increasing" pressure from migration at its border with Serbia, and last year it stopped 275,000 migrants. He warned that migrants are becoming violent, including with weapons against both each other and against officials at the border. He also said that pressure is exacerbated when combined with the ongoing conflict in nearby Ukraine.

"This is alarming because we Hungarians are being faced with a tremendous security-related challenge from the East, given the war, and now from the South as well with the migration," he said. "And instead of the European Union being helpful to resolve these issues, they are making basically both much more serious."

Meanwhile, the U.S. remains in the grip of a nearly three-year crisis at its southern border.

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On Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that there were 232,972 migrant encounters at the southern border in August. That is an increase from the 204,087 encounters in August 2022 and an increase from the 183,494 encountered in July and the 144,570 encountered in June.

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It is the highest number of monthly encounters seen this year, although it is not the highest number seen this fiscal year – with both November and December 2022 seeing higher numbers. Of those encounters in August, which is the highest August on record, 181,059 were encountered by Border Patrol illegally between ports of entry.

Fox News' Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.