The United States limited Visa Waiver Program entry for Hungarians after unsuccessfully trying to obtain private details of 900,000 dual nationals from the central European country, its deputy interior minister said Wednesday
BUDAPEST (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd August, 2023) The United States limited visa Waiver Program entry for Hungarians after unsuccessfully trying to obtain private details of 900,000 dual nationals from the central European country, its deputy interior minister said Wednesday.
"The US demanded from Hungary information on 900,000 Hungarians who have dual nationality and are residing abroad, but Hungary does not share such information because it will endanger the security of our compatriots abroad," Bence Retvari was quoted as saying by Hungary's MTI news agency.
He said there was no guarantee that the US would not pass this information on to Ukraine, which is home to a large community of ethnic Hungarians. Almost all of them reside in the western Ukrainian province of Transcarpathia.
"There is no guarantee that if we satisfy this (US) request they will not hand the details of Transcarpathia Hungarians over to Ukraine, which will have serious consequences for local Hungarians because Ukraine prohibits dual citizenship," Retvari explained.
The US embassy in Hungary announced on Tuesday that Hungarian passport holders would be allowed to stay in the US for one year, down from two years, after accusing the Hungarian government of failing to meet the Visa Waiver Program's security requirements. The embassy argued that Hungary's simplified naturalization process granted Hungarian citizenship to nearly 1 million people between 2011 and 2020 "without adequate security measures in place to verify their identities."
Retvari rejected the embassy's claim as "ungrounded and false" and described the reduction of the travel authorization's duration as Washington's "revenge" for refusing to satisfy its "unreasonable request."
