Hungary Closes Train Station to Migrants; Icelanders Call For Government to Help

Migrants flooding into Hungary have begun rioting over the government’s decision to close a train station in Budapest, keeping them from streaming into Germany.

Police erected a blockage at the city’s main train terminal as about 1,000 migrants chanted “Germany! Germany!”  Later the protesters sat down in front of the barricaded entrance.

Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told the BBC that the country was enforcing the EU’s immigration laws.

The EU has a rule called the “Dublin Regulation” which requires all refugees to register for asylum in the first EU nation they enter.  Because Italy and Greece are overwhelmed with hundreds of thousands of migrants, many skip those checkpoints and travel to other EU nations.

“Dublin rules are still valid and we expect European member states to stick to them,” a German interior ministry spokesman said.

EU leaders have already approved measures to help Greece and Italy with registration of migrants and are looking at ways to streamline the process of immigrants coming to other EU countries.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Icelandic residents have called on their government to welcome refugees into their country as way to escape the violence of the Middle East.