On Tuesday 7 March, the Hungarian parliament voted overwhelmingly to force all asylum seekers into detention camps. The bill to approve plans to detain migrants in camps on the Hungarian border with Serbia was passed with 138 votes to six with 22 abstentions. The bill has been condemned by the UN and various human rights organizations for flagrantly defying international and EU law and as a clear contravention of the Refugee Convention.

Hungary’s southern border with Serbia marks the external frontier of the EU’s passport-free Schengen area. At the height of the migrant crisis in Europe in 2015, as many as 10,000 people crossed the border from Serbia into Hungary each day. The new regulations will be implemented as long as the government-declared state of emergency over mass migration is in place. The current state of emergency has been operational since September 2015, when Hungary formally closed its border with Serbia.

Previously in Hungary, migrants, including asylum-seekers, could not be detained in the so-called “transit zones” on its borders for more than four weeks, after which they had to be allowed inside the country. This reform removes this time limit and introduces mandatory detention for the whole duration of the asylum process. Police can now also detain illegal immigrants anywhere in the country and return them to the Serbian border to be expelled. Amnesty International is referring to the bill as the “container camp bill“, due to the fact that the detention camps are to be made from shipping containers. Hungary is also increasing its fortification of its southern border, with a second line of “smart fence” complete with razor wire, electroshock, surveillance and audio-visual warning systems.

Cécile Pouilly, spokeswoman for UNHCR, said that the organization was “deeply concerned” regarding the new law and the “terrible physical and psychological impact” it will have on asylum seekers who have already suffered greatly in trying to escape the terrible conflict in their own countries. Pouilly emphasized the fact that under international and EU law, alternatives to detention must always be considered first, and failure to do so could render the detention arbitrary. The inclusion of child migrants in this new law is blatantly illegal, as detention can never be considered in a child’s best interest. In light of this Amnesty International is calling for the EU to “step up and show Hungary that such illegal and inhumane measures have consequences.”

This is not the first time Hungary has been criticized in its response to the refugee crisis. A village near the border with Serbia recently made headlines over its use of local legislation to ban the wearing of Muslim dress and the call to prayer. Asotthlaom’s mayor has said that they are hoping to create a  “white utopia” and attract people from western Europe wanting to “escape multiculturalism.” His goal of making the village “the forefront of the war against Muslim culture” was sinisterly echoed in Prime Minister Victor Orbán’s justification for the new “container camp bill”: that Hungary needed to protect itself from “the Trojan horse for terrorism” represented by the influx of migration.

Last year, Hungary granted asylum, or some form of protection, to 425 people out of the 29,432 applications it received 2016. The refugee crisis in Europe is not over, and the situation just got a great deal worse for those fleeing the conflicts that still rage on in their homelands.