Local Opinion: Hungary Offers Protection To 1300 Foreigners

  • 25 Jan 2018 11:30 AM
Local Opinion: Hungary Offers Protection To 1300 Foreigners
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. Alt-left bloggers welcome the government’s decision to offer temporary shelter for foreigners, however they are highly critical of the government’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Mr Altusz stated that in order to protect them (the migrants), the Hungarian government had not trumpeted their admission, which was interpreted by the opposition as proof the government had offered asylum secretly, contradicting its own anti-migrant policies.

However, the statistics on refugees and persons granted subsidiary protection is 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 that the government offers temporarily asylum and subsidized housing to migrants in need. The alt-left blogger, however, finds it highly controversial 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’.

Source: BudaPost

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