Double trouble: visas and debit cards for migrants?

Handing out visas and passing out debit cards filled with EU money are just the latest in the pro-immigration EP majority’s plan to “manage” migration by permitting even more migrants in Europe.

“Hundreds of thousands of Europeans are looking for more information, information that the European Commission is so eager to conceal,” Fidesz MEP Tamás Deutsch said at a press conference two weeks ago after submitting a list of 12 questions to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker regarding the proposal to distribute debit cards.

Specifically, the proposal calls for handing out anonymous debit cards to migrants. The debit cards would apparently be “filled up” with a certain amount of money drawn from the common EU budget.

The list sent to President Juncker includes – among other pressing concerns – questions like: How much EU money is transferred to a migrant? Who supervises the use of the money, what it is spent on and how? And ultimately: Is it right that in this way the Commission uses EU money to support illegal immigrants?

All legitimate questions.

In addition to this revelation, we will see another effort in December to push through plans for a migrant visa. The European Parliament plans to vote before the end of the year on Spanish Socialist MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar’s proposal concerning the creation of a “European Humanitarian Visa”, the same idea that the institution already rejected earlier this year. It seems when it comes to migration issues, the pro-immigration activists in Brussels will call for votes over and over again, until they get the desired outcome.

The initiative is as unacceptable and un-democratic as the idea itself of a migrant visa. It would not have the support of Europe’s citizens and, instead of making a priority of border security and bringing an end to migration, it’s one more attempt to “manage” migration that would in effect encourage more to come. It also looks conspicuously like an attempt to assume authority over decisions on asylum procedures, which clearly rest with the member state governments.

Since 2015, as the migration crisis reached its peak, Hungary has pushed for a European response that makes priorities of border security and stopping illegal migration. We know that that is what the citizens of Hungary want and we believe that most European citizens share that position. Yet, as Europe struggles to confront the crisis, we see determined pro-immigration forces at work in Brussels, political forces that won’t settle for anything else than their pro-migration agenda.

We hope to hear some responses soon from Commission President Juncker.