Two years after the government of
Texas in the U.S. began transferring migrants to other states and to Washington
D.C., the government of Hungary announced that it too would bus migrants, but
rather than transporting them to other states, the destination would be Brussels
exclusively. Although the respective political strategies differ, the two
policies both represent the same pressure point in federal systems. The cost of
united action at the federal level on public policy is that the states are not
as free as otherwise to manifest their respective ideological and cultural
views in public policy at the state level. That federal policy or law is often
a compromise between the preferences of the states means that political
pressure exists not only between states, but between a given state and federal
law. This is inherent to federalism because it provides benefits from united
action and some ability of states to enact legislation reflecting their respective
distinct dominant ideology. Enabling both is one of federalism’s best features,
yet it comes with a cost in terms of political tension that is endemic rather
than merely episodic. Simply put, no system of government is without drawbacks
or downsides. The trick is perhaps in how to manage them so they don’t get so
out of control that the federal system itself collapses. In 2024, Viktor
Orbán, governor of the E.U. state of Hungary, was testing the limits much more
than was Greg Abbott, governor of the U.S. state of Texas, even as Orbán was
using Abbott’s playbook.
In June, 2024, the E.U.’s supreme
court, the European Court of Justice, handed down a ruling ordering the E.U.
state of Hungary to pay a fine of €200 million for breaking federal laws on
asylum plus an additional €1 million per day until the state government passes a
law conforming with the federal law.[1]
Hungary’s requirement that people seeking asylum must first apply for and be
granted travel permits violated the federal law requiring that all of the
states have the same procedures for granting asylum. Setting up a confrontation
with the high court, essentially challenging its very legitimacy, the Hungarian
government “missed the first September deadline for paying the €200 million
fine.[2]
In fact, the state “also demanded compensation for the billions it says it has
spent on border protection, including constructing fences protected by razor
wire on its southern borders with Serbia and Croatia.”[3]
In other word, the state government wanted to be reimbursed by the E.U. for
costs incurred by the state to protect the E.U. border that runs along an edge
of the state. Thus situated, Hungary is like Texas. Ideologically too, Hungary’s
governor was quite similar to the governor of Texas at the time, Greg Abbott.
In fact, Vicktor Orbán likely got
his idea to send illegal immigrants from his state to Brussels from Greg Abbott,
who had spent more than $148 as of February 21, 2024 in putting more than
102,000 illegal immigrants on buses bound for other states and Washington, D.C.[4]
Texas also spent $10 billion on law enforcement and constructing physical
barriers at the U.S. border that runs along the edge of Texas, though reimbursement
by the U.S. was not demanded.[5]
At a news conference at the state capital Budapest, Hungary’s State Secretary
Bence Rétvári accused the E.U. in 2024 of wanting to force the state to allow
illegal immigrants into the state, and announced that the state government
would “offer these illegal migrants, voluntarily, free of charge, one-way
travel to Brussels.”[6] He
made the announcement in front of a row of passenger buses that would be bound
for the E.U. “headquarters in Belgium.”[7]
He said, “If Brussels wants illegal migrants, Brussels can have them.”[8]
Interestingly, Texas could have had the same strategy: instead of sending buses
to lax states as well as to Washington, D.C., all of the buses could have
dropped off their passengers at the Washington Mall—at the U.S. headquarters—as
Abbott had been so critical of U.S. immigration policy.
Both cases—that of Hungary and Texas—demonstrate what can happen when state governments in a union differ on a matter of public policy not only with each other, but also from a federal policy or law. The degree of unity that is necessary for a union to continue to exist and function viably comes at the expense of ideological differences between states. This tension is endemic to federalism, as that system of government allows for cultural or ideological diversity between states and benefits to the whole that the combined forces of an empire-scale union can provide. In the E.U., the Hungarian government was quite critical in 2024 of Germany’s more lenient practice in allowing migrants to enter the state, yet at the same time the united force of the E.U. was able to give Europeans more power in resisting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the U.S., the Texan government was critical of California’s “sanctuary cities” in which illegal aliens were not arrested by state police, yet at the same time the united force of the U.S. was also able to stand up to Russia’s president’s militaristic foray into Ukraine. Both cases demonstrate federal systems that are “living and breathing,” allowing for differences between states, such as on abortion in the U.S. and social policy in the E.U., while enabling both unions to have a significant impact internationally.
1. Angela Skujins, “’We
Never Let Them In’: Hungary’s PM Viktor Orbán Demands New Laws Tackling
Migration,” Euronews.com, September 6, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Sergio Martinez-Beltran, “Texas
Has Spent More than $148 Million Busing Migrants to Other Parts of the Country,”
The Texas Tribune, February 21, 2024.
5. Ibid.
6. Angela Skujins, “’We Never Let Them In’: Hungary’s PM Viktor Orbán Demands New Laws Tackling Migration,” Euronews.com, September 6, 2024.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
