Europe’s Anti-Immigrant Leaders Have a Secret
Hungary, Poland, and Serbia are among countries quietly importing workers to cope with a labor crisis.
Guest workers from India are working at a dairy farm in Sarud, Hungary.
Photographer: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg
Satwinder Singh caused quite a stir when he arrived in Sarud, a sleepy Hungarian village, four years ago. He was among a handful of guest workers who’d been brought over from India to work at a dairy farm that was struggling to stay afloat because of a labor shortage. The locals weren’t welcoming.
Speaking on a recent morning, he described being pelted with eggs by some townsfolk. Others called him a terrorist. Some of Sarud’s residents took their concerns straight to their mayor. “Someone came to me saying the Indians will inject poison into the milk and contaminate the whole country,” recalls Istvan Tilcsik. “Then people saw they just came to work and never had run-ins with the law. Things have settled down now.”