Hungary’s new government has revoked the refugee status granted under Viktor Orbán to former Polish justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, his former deputy Marcin Romanowski, and Ziobro’s wife, Patrycja Kotecka-Ziobro, while also invalidating their Hungarian-issued travel documents.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said Warsaw had received written confirmation of the decision. ‘The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind,’ he wrote, welcoming a move that removes the protection Budapest had extended to three figures linked to Poland’s former Law and Justice (PiS) administration. The Hungarian government has yet to issue a statement on the matter.
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar, a close ally of Donald Tusk’s government, explicitly pledged after winning a landslide supermajority on 12 April that ‘Hungary would no longer shelter’ Ziobro and Romanowski, declaring that the country would no longer serve as a ‘safe haven for internationally wanted politicians’.
Following the revocation of their refugee status, Ziobro and Romanowski can no longer rely on their Hungarian ‘Geneva passports’—refugee travel documents that allowed them to travel despite Poland having invalidated their Polish passports. Ziobro used such a document when he flew from Milan to New York on 9 May, the day Magyar was sworn in as prime minister. Romanowski’s current whereabouts remain unknown.
The revocation does not, however, automatically make Ziobro’s stay in the United States unlawful. Under US immigration rules, a visa permits a foreign national to seek entry, while the period of authorized stay is determined by the admission record, usually Form I-94.
‘The revocation does not, however, automatically make Ziobro’s stay in the United States unlawful’
The Hungarian decision could complicate future travel and strengthen Warsaw’s diplomatic and legal position, but any cancellation of Ziobro’s US status, detention, or extradition would require separate action by the American authorities—which is far from certain, as the case has also become a point of tension between Warsaw and Donald Trump’s administration.
Reuters reported in May that US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau instructed senior officials to facilitate and approve a foreign media visa for Ziobro before Magyar took office. Ziobro subsequently became a US correspondent for the pro-PiS broadcaster TV Republika. Landau and the State Department declined to comment on the report, and no fresh official US reaction to Hungary’s decision had been issued by Friday.
Polish Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek, nevertheless, said his ministry would use ‘all legal means’ to bring the men before a Polish court. He said Warsaw would contact the relevant US authorities to determine whether people deprived of valid travel documents could remain in the country.
The announcement came one day after the Warsaw Regional Court upheld a pre-trial detention order against Ziobro, clearing the way for prosecutors to proceed with an extradition request to the United States.
Ziobro dismissed the Polish government’s interpretation, arguing that his US visa was independent of the travel document on which it had been issued. He said there was an appeal procedure against the Hungarian decision and that he would consult his lawyer in Budapest.
In a separate interview, he challenged Warsaw to submit an extradition request, claiming that an American court would assess his allegations of political persecution more independently than Poland’s judiciary.
His lawyer, Bartosz Lewandowski, accused Donald Tusk’s government of ‘exerting strong pressure’ on the new Hungarian authorities. ‘Since 2023, the entire government apparatus has been focused on persecuting the political opposition in Poland,’ he said. Ziobro and Romanowski maintain that the investigations are retaliation for cases they pursued against people close to Tusk.
Polish prosecutors accuse Ziobro of 26 offences, including leading an organized criminal group, abusing his office, and directing the misuse of money from the Justice Fund, which was intended to assist victims of crime. Romanowski faces related allegations over the distribution of money from the same fund and is the subject of a European Arrest Warrant. Both men deny wrongdoing.
Romanowski received Hungarian asylum in December 2024. Ziobro and his wife were granted protection later under Orbán, whose government argued that they could not expect fair proceedings in Poland. The decisions further deepened the already strained Polish–Hungarian relationship after Tusk replaced PiS in government in 2023.
‘Like Tusk’s government in its push to prosecute former PiS officials, the Tisza government is pursuing a sweeping reckoning with Viktor Orbán’s previous administrations’
Owing to the low level of relations between the two administrations, Tusk became one of Magyar’s most vocal supporters during the Hungarian election campaign. The two have since met during an official visit by a Hungarian delegation led by Magyar to Warsaw in May.
Like Tusk’s government in its push to prosecute former PiS officials, the Tisza government is pursuing a sweeping reckoning with Viktor Orbán’s previous administrations through the recently announced ‘Operation Purgatory’.
The initiative includes investigating alleged corruption linked to Orbán’s 16 years in power, recovering allegedly misappropriated state assets, and dismantling what Magyar describes as Fidesz’s ‘political and economic mafia’. It also moves to remove President Tamás Sulyok and other officeholders appointed under previous governments on the grounds of restoring the rule of law. Orbán and Fidesz, echoing PiS, deny any wrongdoing and accuse Magyar of moving towards authoritarianism and persecuting the political opposition.
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