Explainers Crossword Video Podcasts Politics Policy Culture Science More Give

Politics

Hungary just passed a “Stop Soros” law that makes

it illegal to help undocumented migrants
This is a seriously scary law.
By Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp zack@vox.com Jun 22, 2018, 1:30pm EDT

Most Read
Take a mental break with the
newest Vox crossword

The Air Quality Index and how to

use it, explained

Barbieheimer: Destroyer of
worlds, savior of cinema

Stop trying to have the perfect

vacation. You’re ruining everyone
else’s.

Should you combine finances

with your partner?

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Laszlo Balogh/Getty Images

Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and

challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. Before coming to Vox in 2014, he
edited TP Ideas, a section of Think Progress devoted to the ideas shaping our political
world.

Ifyou want to know where anti-immigrant right-wing populism can go if left unchecked, you
should take a look at Hungary — which, under the pretext of cracking down on illegal
immigration, passed a bill that gives the Hungarian government extraordinary powers to jail its
political opponents.

This week, Hungary passed what the government dubbed the “Stop Soros” law, named after
Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros . The new law, drafted by Prime Minister Viktor
Orbán, creates a new category of crime, called “promoting and supporting illegal migration” —
essentially, banning individuals and organizations from providing any kind of assistance to
undocumented immigrants. This is so broadly worded that, in theory, the government could
arrest someone who provides food to an undocumented migrant on the street or attends a
political rally in favor of their rights.

“The primary aim of this legislation is to intimidate, by means of criminal law, those who fully
legitimately assist asylum seekers or foreigners,” the Hungarian Helsinki Committee , a local
human rights group, explains in a press release. “It threatens [to] jail those who support
vulnerable people.”

Hungary’s government framed the bill as a check on the influence of Soros , a Jewish Holocaust
survivor who funds pro-democracy activism around the world. Orbán has fingered Soros (who
is also a favorite villain of the American right ) as the source of an international plot to
destroy Hungary through migration. He often launches attacks on the billionaire in strikingly
anti-Semitic terms.

“We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward
but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but
speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world,”
Orban said in a characteristic anti-Soros tirade in March .

The Stop Soros bill is every fear about right-wing populism made manifest: an attack on basic
democratic rights by an elected government, one legitimized and made popular by attacks on
vulnerable minorities. Americans might want to pay attention.

Why Hungary’s government is obsessed with George Soros

An anti-Soros poster on a street in Hungary. Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images

Prime Minister Orbán was first elected — in a perfectly fair and democratic context — in 2010.
Since then, he has made it his mission to ensure that no one could dislodge him from power.

He has attacked the independence of the court system , gerrymandered electoral districts
so it’s nearly impossible for his Fidesz party to lose its electoral majority, and gotten his allies
to buy up independent media outlets to mute criticism and disseminate propaganda. This
agenda has not been subtle; he has openly declared his intention to bring an end to “liberal
democracy” and replace it with an unspecified “Christian” system.

“We need to say it out loud because you can’t reform a nation in secrecy: The era of liberal
democracy is over,” Orbán said in one speech. “Rather than try to fix a liberal democracy that
has run aground, we will build a 21st-century Christian democracy.”

There’s still a lot of opposition to Orbán’s policies in Hungary, particularly in the capital city of
Budapest. But Orbán is popular with a pretty significant chunk of Hungarian society. In the April
2018 parliamentary elections, the Fidesz party won a little under 50 percent of the vote. The
next-closest party, the even-more right-wing Jobbik, won 19 percent.

This is partly a testament to the weakness
testament to Orbán’s ability to manipulate
migrants and minorities. The “Stop Soros”
it’s at the core of it, an example of how he
build support for an authoritarian agenda.
of the Hungarian opposition. But it is also a
fear and prejudice — specifically as it relates to
bill is not ancillary to the prime minister’s popularity;
picks up on anxieties created by the refugee crisis to

Soros really has invested a lot of money into Hungary. He got his start in activism in 1984,
funding activists demonstrating against Hungary’s then-Communist government. Since then,
he has funded civil society groups working to cement the country’s transition from
dictatorship into democracy, among other philanthropic projects .

This sort of activity is obviously quite threatening to a would-be authoritarian like Orbán, who
has cast Soros as a kind of a James Bond villain in a strikingly successful bid to check his
influence. In 2017, the government put up posters with his face twisted in a nefarious-
smile , with the captions “don’t let Soros have the last laugh” and “99 percent oppose
illegal immigration” underneath.

Soros’s aim, according to Orbán, is to undermine the soul of European Christian society — to
hollow out the West from the inside out. Soros’s humanitarian activity is supposedly secretly
indoctrinating Hungarians in a bid to let them acquiesce to mass migration. Once Soros and his
allies succeed in opening the borders, Orbán warns, Muslim refugees will flood into Hungary
and the rest of Europe — and soon the continent will become unrecognizable.

“We are up against media outlets maintained by foreign concerns and domestic oligarchs,
professional hired activists, troublemaking protest organizers, and a chain of NGOs financed by
an international speculator, summed up by and embodied in the name George Soros,” as he
put it in one speech . “Those who do not halt immigration at their borders are lost: slowly but
surely they are consumed. External forces and international powers want to force all this upon
us, with the help of their allies here in our country.”

This kind of paranoid rhetoric, which should sound familiar to American ears, is a hallmark of
Orbán’s public commentary — and has served as a justification for all sorts of different anti-
and anti-minority crackdowns.

Orbán has campaigned to close the Central European University, a prestigious university in
Budapest funded by Soros, on grounds that it’s corrupting Hungarian society. He has built not
one, but two, walls on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia — cutting off access from a route
desperate refugees have used to get into Europe. Soros’s Open Society Foundation, his
international pro-democracy charity, closed down all of its Budapest operations in May (citing
a climate of persecution).

And now, the Hungarian parliament has passed the “Stop Soros” law — a bill that human rights
advocates fear will be used to shut down opposition groups and local rights campaigners.

Cas Mudde , an expert on right-wing politics at the University of Georgia, defines the radical
right as possessing three features: an authoritarian approach to law and order, a populist
critique of elites as out of touch and corrupt, and a nativist ideology that casts immigrants as a
threat to the nation. Orbán, as the “Stop Soros” law proves, embodies all three of these
descriptors perfectly.

He’s certainly not the only politician in the Western world who does.

Next Up In Politics
What’s new in the new indictment against Donald Trump?
Your 5 biggest questions about Trump’s latest indictment, answered
What we know about Mitch McConnell’s health and his future in the Senate
The saga of China’s missing-then-fired foreign minister
It’s time to close the gene synthesis loophole that could lead to a human-made pandemic
The drama over Hunter Biden’s plea deal, explained

The Latest

What’s new in the new indictment against Donald

Trump?
By Ian Millhiser

Your 5 biggest questions about Trump’s latest

indictment, answered
By Nicole Narea and Li Zhou

What we know about Mitch McConnell’s health and

his future in the Senate
By Nicole Narea and Keren Landman

The saga of China’s missing-then-fired foreign

minister
By Ellen Ioanes

How to help America’s kids: Give their parents cash

By Rachel M. Cohen

2023’s big summer movie season, explained

The nuclear bomb’s enduring, evolving place in pop

culture
By Alissa Wilkinson

About us
Our staff
Privacy policy
Terms of Use Privacy Notice Cookie Policy
Ethics & Guidelines Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Info Licensing FAQ
How we make money Accessibility Platform Status Advertise with us
Contact us Jobs @ Vox Media

How to pitch Vox Author Login

© 2023 Vox Media , LLC. All Rights Reserved