Hungarian lawmakers reject anti-migrant proposal

Hungary’s prime minister failed to stop asylum seekers from being resettled in his country under European Union quotas on Tuesday.

Viktor Orban’s proposed amendment to the constitution would have barred "foreign populations" from being sent there. Hungary is supposed to take in 1,294 migrants under EU plans to resettle 160,000 migrants across member states.

Orban’s Fidesz party failed to secure any opposition support and fell two votes short of the two-thirds majority necessary for the change, the Associated Press reported.

Orban proposed the amendment after a referendum in October when Hungarians voted against the mandatory EU quotas. However a turnout of less than 50% made the referendum non-binding.

Analyst Zoltan Cegledi said Orban’s failure was a “defeat of power politics … which puts Orban in the difficult position of having to explain why he isn’t capable of achieving anything,” the AP reported.

Hungary has filed a lawsuit against the European Commission — the EU's executive — in the European Court of Justice to challenge its mandatory quota of asylum seekers. A decision is expected next year, according to the BBC.

A record 1.3 million migrants applied for asylum in the European Union's 28 member states as well as in non-members Norway and Switzerland in 2015, according to analysis by the Pew Research Center.