US Restricts Visa Waiver Program for Hungarians

The United States tightened visa-free access for Hungarians to its territory amid security concerns stemming from the policies of the Hungarian government. Washington’s move comes after several previous threats that it will limit travel opportunities for Hungarian citizens.

Bilateral relations between the United States and Hungary took a turn for the worse after Washington announced that it would limit the visa waiver program for Hungarian citizens over security concerns. Under the American Visa Waiver Program, citizens of participating countries can travel to the US for tourism or business for up to 90 days without a visa, by simply requesting a so-called Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). The Visa Waiver Program allows passport holders from 40 countries to enter the US for business or tourism without a visa. In accordance with the travel limitations introduced by Washington, the ESTA validity for Hungarian passport holders is reduced from two years to one, and an ESTA will only be valid for a single use starting this week. No other state participating states in the Visa Waiver Program faces similar restrictions.

Insufficient security
The US says that the travel restrictions imposed on Hungarian citizens are due to the fact that the identities of nearly 1 million foreigners granted Hungarian passports over the past 10 years were not sufficiently verified. "Security flaws" stemming from the massive naturalization policy put in place by the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán lie at the root of the US policy change, according to the US Embassy in Budapest. “There are hundreds of thousands of passports that have been issued by the government of Hungary as part of the simplified naturalization program without stringent identity verification mechanisms in place,” David Pressman, the US ambassador in Budapest, told Politico in an interview ahead of the announcement. Washington has been engaging the Hungarian government on this “security vulnerability” for many years and across multiple administrations, but “the government of Hungary has opted not to close” it, Pressman said.
Hungary’s government launched a simplified naturalization procedure in 2011 for ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries, primarily in Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia and Serbia. Hundreds of thousands acquired Hungarian citizenship through the simplified procedure. Washington claims that criminal networks were able to take advantage of this scheme to fraudulently obtain authentic Hungarian passports. As Hungary is a member of the Schengen agreement, holders of Hungarian passports can travel freely in much of Western Europe. Citizenship has been quickly granted "without adequate verification of the identity" of the applicants, wrote the US embassy in Budapest.
In response to the travel restrictions, Hungary’s Interior Ministry issued a statement, saying the United States had demanded the personal data of ethnic Hungarians abroad with dual citizenship, and Hungary’s government was unwilling to provide that information in order to protect those citizens’ security. The statement went on to say the move was “revenge by [US] President Joe Biden.”
Relations between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and its western allies, including the US, have worsened over the previous years. Several western countries criticized Orbán for eroding democratic standards and human rights. NATO member states are frustrated over Hungary still not having ratified Sweden’s accession bid.