Trump Ally Forced to Pay $215 Million for Deporting Migrants

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is lashing out after the European Union fined his nation nearly $215 million for violating the EU's asylum and migration laws.

The EU's Court of Justice, based in Luxembourg, said in a statement issued Thursday that Hungary must pay a lump sum of 200 million euros and a penalty payment of 1 million euros per day of delay for failure to comply with a judgment derived from "deliberately avoiding the application of a common EU policy as a whole," adding it constitutes "an unprecedented and extremely serious infringement of EU law."

Orban, a right-wing lawmaker and strong ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump, called the fines "outrageous and unacceptable" in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

"It seems that illegal #migrants are more important to the Brussels bureaucrats than their own European citizens," Orban said.

The court said that starting in December 2020, Orban and Hungary failed to comply with EU rules and procedures.

"That failure concerned restricting access to the international protection procedure, unlawfully detaining applicants for international protection in transit zones and failing to observe their right to remain in Hungarian territory pending a final decision on their appeal against the rejection of their application, as well as the removal of illegally staying third-country nationals," the court said.

When Hungary purportedly didn't comply with EU protocols, aside from closing transit zones that had closed prior to the present judgment, the court was compelled to impose financial penalties.

Hungary's disregard toward migration and asylum laws was described by the court not just as evading common EU policy and the solidarity by member nations but imposes "a serious threat to the unity of EU law, which has an extraordinarily serious impact both on private interests, particularly the interests of asylum seekers, and on the public interest."

More than 380,000 migrants crossed EU borders illegally last year, the most since 2016, according to the BBC.

In April, the EU Asylum and Migration Pact was approved—after negotiations dating to 2015—that beginning in two years is designed to speed up the asylum process and return "irregular migrants" to their native countries.

The 27 EU countries will be required to allocate additional resources to deal with illegal migration and asylum claims or take in the migrants.

Last Saturday, ahead of EU Parliament elections in Hungary, tens of thousands of Orban protesters galvanized in Budapest in support of Péter Magyar, the leader of Hungary's strongest opposition party, Respect and Freedom (TISZA).

Magyar has drawn support in opposing Orban, of the Fidesz right-wing party, not seen in well over a decade. He is vying to potentially challenge Orban in the country's next national election in 2026.