Ali Velshi Profile picture
Mar 5 20 tweets 7 min read
1/20
One of the reasons I’m here in Beregsurany, Hungary on the border of Ukraine is because thousands of Ukrainians who have been driven from their homes are seeking safety right here. #velshi
2/20
Hungary has welcomed around 145,000 refugees since the start of the conflict in Ukraine. On Thursday night, I was at a train station in Budapest at which thousands of refugees were arriving. #velshi
3/20
Hungarian civilians, churches, the Red Cross and other rescue organizations set up a well-organized humanitarian mission to feed, transport and help house the asylum seekers, some of whom had been immigrants to Ukraine themselves. #velshi
4/20
What’s interesting about Hungary, which is a NATO country, is that just hours after the hostilities with Russia began, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban reversed his hardline border policies, opening the country’s doors to the people of Ukraine saying… #velshi
5/20
“We’re prepared to take care of them, and we’ll be able to rise to the challenge quickly and efficiently.” That’s an uncharacteristically empathic outlook coming from Viktor Orban. #velshi
6/20
His far-right policies make recent American responses to border crossings look saintly & are a major change from the way Hungary itself handled its last migration challenge 7 yrs ago. Hungary has some of the strictest - and cruelest- border laws in the European Union.#velshi
7/20
Much to Orban’s credit. Ever since the start of the 2015 refugee crisis - when migrants from the Middle East-mainly Syria - began to seek refuge in countries like Greece, Poland, and Hungary - Orban has branded himself as an anti-migrant nationalist. #velshi
8/20
He’s on record demonizing those migrants as “Muslim invaders” and calling the migration influx a “poison”. But if actions speak louder than words, you’ll really be convinced of Orban’s xenophobia. #velshi
9/20
Back in 2015, while other European countries were legitimately- if often poorly - scrambling to figure out how to accept and integrate the asylum seekers, Orban instead launched a multi-million-dollar anti-immigrant campaign. #velshi
10/20
Hungary’s borders were all but closed to Middle Eastern migrants-- not white, non-Christians. A razor-wire fence was installed along its Serbian border and Hungary’s criminal code was strengthened to call for harsher jail sentences for unauthorized border crossings. #velshi
11/20
In 2016, Hungary established a “pushback law” which made it legal for law enforcement to quite literally push migrants back over the border. And they did so with remarkable force and violence. #velshi
12/20
In 2018 Hungary passed the “Stop Soros” bill, based in a virulent right-wing lie about the American George Soros. The law created a new category of crime: “promoting and supporting illegal migration” making it illegal to provide assistance to undocumented immigrants #velshi
13/20
But things have changed. Or have they? There is a stark difference between Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s relative hospitality toward European refugees and his past treatment of Muslim refugees. #velshi
14/20
To Orban, the difference lies in who he considers “migrants” and “refugees”. Orban told Al Jazeera this week, “Migrants are stopped. Refugees can get all the help”. Can’t say I’m sure what he means by that. He added, “We are not living in a comfortable West..." #velshi
15/20
"We are living in the midst of difficulties, not just now but throughout our history, so we are able to tell the difference between who is a migrant and who is a refugee.” In other words, who deserves the help. And who doesn’t. #velshi
16/20
It’s worth noting that even in this crisis, while the rest of Europe agreed to extend residency and work permits to those entering from Ukraine, Hungary initially prevaricated saying asylum policies in place are good enough. #velshi
17/20
BUT eventually relented under pressure from fellow European nations, and in the face of stinging criticism from at home and abroad. #velshi
18/20
Hungary has become so anti-immigrant that even the white Christian ones scare them a bit. Not as much as the Muslim ones, but still. #velshi
19/20
The one saving grace was watching how I witnessed Hungarian CIVILIANS, not the government, welcoming those from Ukraine, of all colors, at a train station in Budapest. #velshi
20/20
Though many of those volunteers privately made a point to tell me, they weren’t there because of the Hungarian government’s migration policies, but in spite of them. #velshi

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More from @AliVelshi

Feb 27
4/22
Telex - not just the machine, but the system it worked on - was the network used to send written messages between businesses - and most commonly between banks. #velshi
5/22
So, between 1930 until the 70’s, if you needed to transfer or “wire” money to someone - you were using Telex. Without getting too technical, this is how the process worked: you would go to the bank or business - maybe it was an insurance company. #velshi
6/22
Type out the message on the keyboard. The message was transferred to a piece of tape, which was coded. Then you’d use a rotary phone to call the bank receiving your transfer. When they answered, your message went through a tape reader. #velshi
Read 19 tweets
Feb 5
1/21
If you've been watching our show recently, you'd know that we've been keeping a close watch on the hundreds of books that have either been challenged, barred, or face proposals to get pulled from schools, curricula, and libraries across the country. #velshi
2/21
Hundreds of books, new and old. They’ve been deemed "controversial," for a variety of reasons. #velshi
3/21
These books contain "objectionable language", "outrageous storytelling", they're "too sexually explicit", or they fall into this vague, largely undefined, or mischaracterized allegation of being about Critical Race Theory. #velshi
Read 21 tweets
Jan 22
1/20
Imagine this: you and your family live on the land you’ve owned for decades - maybe even close to a century. You live a simple, peaceful life in a small village within a community of people you’ve known for as long as you can remember. #velshi
2/20
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a new group of people, build their own village right on your village’s land. Not like neighbors though - rather, they are intent on displacing and replacing you. #velshi
3/20
They build THEIR homes on YOUR land with the sanction of the government, and the protection of the military. Now, there is barbed wire where your sheep used to graze. #velshi
Read 20 tweets
Jan 15
1/19
On 1/6/22 within the 1st hour of the assault on the U.S. Capitol, Merriam-Webster dictionary reported that the word “sedition” was at the top of its searches. More people were searching “sedition” than “coup” or “insurrection”. #velshi
2/19
At the time, then-President-elect Joe Biden even said of the attack that “It borders on sedition”. It wouldn’t be the first or the last time “sedition” was used to describe the actions of the pro-Trumpers who breached the Capitol that day. #velshi
3/19
Now, a year later, the Justice department has filed actual sedition charges. 11 members of the far-right, anti-government extremist group, the Oath Keepers have been charged with “seditious conspiracy.” #velshi
Read 19 tweets
Dec 19, 2021
1/17
Among the reasons Americans lack faith in their legislators is the impression that they play by a different set of rules than the rest of us mere mortals and, in some cases, that’s entirely true. #velshi
2/17
One key area in which Members of Congress are able to do things that might be considered downright illegal if the rest of us did it, is in their ability to use non-public information to invest in public companies. #velshi
3/17
This isn’t a partisan thing “it’s done by members of both parties, and it’s validly criticized by conservative and liberal watchdogs alike. #velshi
Read 17 tweets
Dec 5, 2021
1/18
I want to tell you the story of Sarah Weddington. Sarah was born in 1945 in Abilene, Texas. Sarah always thought she’d grow up to teach high school students about the epic poem “Beowulf”. By the time she got to college, her aspirations had evolved. #velshi
2/18
Despite her college dean telling her law school would be too tough for a woman, she enrolled at the University of Texas Law School in 1964: one of 40 women in a class of 1,600. #velshi
3/18
Sarah Weddington recalls a building across from the law school, where women - and some men - would sit in little nooks, at desks rescued from the garbage, and work to preserve women’s rights. #velshi
Read 18 tweets

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