Hungary offers protection to 1300 foreigners

An alt-left blogger welcomes the government’s decision to offer temporary shelter to 1,291 migrants. He, however is, highly critical of the government’s anti-migrant rhetoric.

In an interview with the Times of Malta Last week, Kristóf Altusz, Deputy State Secretary for European and American Affairs said that in 2017, Hungary offered subsidiary protection status to 1291 individuals. Mr Altusz added that in order to protect them, the Hungarian government had not trumpeted their admission, which was interpreted by the opposition as proof that the government had offered asylum secretly, contradicting its own anti-migrant policies. Statistics on refugees and persons granted subsidiary protection are published every month on the website of the Immigration and Asylum Office. As opposed to refugees, individuals with subsidiary protection status are not eligible for naturalization. PM Orbán told National Public Radio that these individuals have applied for asylum legally rather than crossing Hungary’s borders illegally, and 90 per cent of them have already left the country. On Monday, Magyar Nemzet wrote that the government has offered subsidized housing to protected individuals.

In Kettős Mérce, András Jámbor welcomes  the fact that the government offers temporary asylum and subsidized housing to some of those who apply. The alt-left blogger finds it highly controversial however that the government follows a harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric. Jámbor finds the government guilty of cutting welfare benefits and believes that its ‘anti-immigrant rhetoric’ is aimed at diverting attention from what he calls its ‘wholesale exploitation of the Hungarian people’.

Tags: migration