A thorough knowledge of migration, and within this, of the complexity of the interna-tional refugee problem and its institutions, and at the same time a failure to digest the empirical evidence accrued during the one-year stay in Hungary, a generalisation of po-litical events as portrayed in American journalism: this is the non-rhyming duality I sense in Maryellen Fullerton's study.
As a matter of fact, her study seems extremely one-sided in view of the year spent in Hungary and the in-depth study of the refugee problem. If a Hungarian research er had been allotted the same amou nt of time for studying migration institutions in the US, I doubt he would make the same mistake of blaming the current government for the much criticised, selective immigration and refugee policy - in spite of the existence of a full legal framework -, the strict visa policy, the less than efficient border control, the much-debated decrease of welfare benefits - especially in terms of illegal migrants. Neither would be so quickly levy criticism against the demoeratic achievements and political aspirations of the host country without first analysing the country's history and develop-ment. Our research fellow would probably show more empathy towards the control and management of the positive aspects of migration being of strategic interest and how, at the same time, regulation and control of the more unpleasant aspects of migration emerged as an issue of national security in the USA. She might even show how the no. 1 poiiticai power might co-ordinate management of this issue with both national interests and obli-gations.
One of the main problems of the artic\e is a conceptual interpretation. This is retlected by the auth or claiming that between 1988 and 1995 Hungary registered over 130,000 refugees, and that many more sought private assistance and never informed the authorities of their presence, while by late 1994 the number of registered refuge es dwindled to less than 8,000. The quoted figures are indeed genuine, but their interpretation is misleading.
The over 130,000 people is an overall figure, inc\uding both those who applied for refu-gee status and those who received temporary protection, those who were in legal transit towards a third country, as weil as those who requested official help for settlement or repatriation, and those who sought legal counselling from the Hungariart authorities to dec ide which option they should choose. In 1992, the year which Hungary saw the highest number of asylum seekers claiming persecution, about 12,000 people requested and received fo od and shelter from the state. Others about four or five times this figure -were, following their registration, spontaneously placed with Hungarian families, placed
in private accommodation or referred to NGOs for assistance. The assumption that the number of refugees who did not register themselves with the authorities was considerably more than 130,000 is simply absurd. In contrast to the challenge posed to the US by the several hundreds of thousand of refugees living illegally in the continent-large country, this is hardly the case in Hungary.
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is also true that by 1994 there were less than 8.000 refugees in Hungary since, of the 6,000 individuals who applied for refugee status since 1989, about 4,250 were granted such status and today! there are no more th an 2,700 con-vention refugees in Hungary. What the author had in mind were the temporary protected persons from Yugoslavia whose situation she had the opportunity to study. The quoted numbers are indeed correct with reference to these refugees, and it should be noted here that in mid-January 1997, there were about 4,600 individuals receiving temporary protec-tion in the country.The author misunderstands and misinterprets the fact that there are Hungarian ethnic minorities in ali of the countries bordering Hungary and that each democratically elected Hungarian government has specific responsibilities and interests concerning this minority which it can finally officially represent. Today this is a poIiticaI priority which is at least as important as maintaining good relations with the neighbouring countries. It is also weil known that a country's immigration policy is based on utilitarianism, and the US is no exception. Nor is it unique that in granting citizenship, Hungary exercises a positive dis-crimination in the case of individuals of Hungarian ethnic background. However, Hungar-ian immigration policy has never applied racial, national or other discriminatory prefer-ences, with sole exception being the geographic reservation concerning non-European refugees, which Hungary amended to the 1951 Geneva Convention. In other words, the claim that refugees who happen to be ethnic Hungarians receive preferential treatment in the Hungarian refugee process is entire ly unfounded. The fact is that the greater part of aliens requesting refugee status are already ethnic Hungarians from neighbouring coun-tries as such applicants are the least liable to reg ard Hungary as a transit country and prefer instead to remain here permanently due to greater facility of cultural integration.
Also the overwhelming majority of applicants for refugee status arrive from Romania, and their arrival began weil before the events in 1989-90, owing to persecution before and
after that period. If M. Fullerton's claim that ethnic Hungarians are recipients of positive
discrimination, at least as many ofthese ethnic Hungarians from Transylvania would have been recognised later as refugees during the above period, which is simply not true. The fact is that only 2,942 Romanian nationals have been recognised as refugees since 1989:
and this figure is contrasted with the 30,398 official immigrants- to Hungary, it is quite clear that it is merely the author's obsession that the refugee process has been misused as some kind of "Law of Return", for neither practice nor intent for ethnic preferences in contradiction to the 1951 Geneva Convention can be demonstrated. Hungary has no need for the preferential settlement of ethnic Hungarians by manipulating the refugee process -purportedly for lack of an established repatriation programme -, since the country has immigration and citizenship policies regulated by legislation. In any event: the previous and the current governments have both declared their main interest to be the guarantee of
IIn mid-January of 1997.(J.T.)
2It refcrs on aliens in possession of an open-ended residenec pennit. (J.T.)
minority rights to ethnic Hungarians in their respective homelands only insofar as such rights are consistent with existing European guidelines.
The charge of consciously misleading international organisations providing assistance for refugees and of manipulation the number of refugees is a similarly unfounded, but well-known insinuation first voiced by the Budapest Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, yet not by its Geneva Headquarters; it is also a fact that since early 1995 the UNHCR has drastically decreased its assistance to refugees in Hungary, and assistance is no longer channel!ed through government ageneies, but into projects which directly involve their beneficiaries. It is common knowledge that the UNHCR of-fers specific support in the form of projects and that these, their budget and invoices were and are reviewed annual!y in Geneva. In consequence to the shock caused by mass influx in the early 1990s, the unpreparedness for reception and the stil! emerging nature of rele-vant institutional framework, there may have been problem in accumulating proper data, and it is obvious that responsibility for the use of UN funds must be equal!y shared by Hungarian refugee authorities and the UNHCR. Instead of making groundless allegations to demonstrate that current leaders of the refugee office have created a transparent and control!able system which enables the precise manipulation of UN assistance it might perhaps be more justified to initiate concrete investigations examining specific cases.
received from the UNHCR. As a matter of fact, the UNHCR no longer contributes to the most costly aspect of refugee assistance: the maintenance of camps.
Another misunderstanding is that non-European refugees who have been granted so-called "mandate" refugee status by the UNHCR do not obtain labour permits. The fact is that people arriving from ex- Yugoslavia who received temporary protection, similar to other legal aliens in Hungary, can be employed aceording to relevant legal provisions:
they need a residence and a labour perrnit. The latter is issued by the regional labour authority. It is an entirely different matter that these people often have difficulties in finding jobs, not because of regulations, but because of their qualifications (or lack of thereof) and the tempting and ready availability of part-time or seasonal illegal jobs.
Positive discrimination in their favour - in this case, a disregard of the necessary labour perrnit - is not possible at the moment, and 1 would like to emphasise that it is unfair to shift the blame ont o refugee officials. Nonetheless, an amendment to the Decree by the Minister of Labour (No. 7 in 1991), drafted on the initiative of the Office for Refugee and Migration Affairs stipulates that temporary protected persons residing as inmates can work within the camp without a perrnit.
The author claims that "traces of an unacknowledged preference for ethnic Hungarian asylum seekers can be detected in severallegal provisions", This claim is unknown to the refugee authority. That the Section on asylum in the Hungarian Constitution offers special protection to those persecuted for linguistic reasons is a fact, but since considerable po-litical and legal efforts have been made to modify preference in the new constitutien. it might have been better for a scholar not to simply criticise a countrys effective constitu-tions, but tostudy the historicaI and politicaI circumstances which shaped it.
Aceording to M. Fullerton, ethnic Hungarians are expressly favoured by the refugee assistance system, while refugees of non-Hungari an ethnic background only receive tem-porary protection. It is regrettable that the one year spent by the author in Hungary proved insufficient for her to understand that temporary protection is provided, independently of
ethnic background, for refugees from ex- Yugoslavia, of whom ethnic Hungarians from the Voivodina (i.e. Yugoslavia) and Baranya (i.e. Croatia) constitute a significant per-centage. Itshould also be bome in mind that 28 per cent of recognised refugees originate from ex- Yugoslavia, since the application procedure for refugee status isreadily accessi-ble to them. The auth or c1aims that 90 per cent of temporary protected persons are
11011-Hungarians, but the fact is that in 1995 only 67 per cent, and in 1996 only 50 per cent, were non-Hungarians. The ratio of ethnic Hungarians among the applicants and recog-nised refugees was basically identical in the year (J 995) studied by the auth or. Consider-ingthe period since 1989, we can saythat 84.2 per cent of recognised refugees were eth-nic Hungarians, and 75 per cent of ali applicants. The difference in the legal status of refugees and temporary protected persons does not stem from the two tiers of an identical procedure, but from two different legal titles and processes which have noth ingto do with ethnic background.
We are also reproached for requesting that the examination necessary for acquiring Hungarian citizenship be administered in Hungarian. 1 hope that the author has also eriti-cised this practice elsewhere, name ly in the US, where the mandatory oath and examina-tion are conducted in English, whereby those speaking English are at a clear advantage.
With regard to the asylum procedure itself, Hungarian public administrative proceedings ensure the applicant's use of his native tongue, by the provision of an interpreter at no expense to the applicant. The asylum procedure is marked by standard protocol and, in every case, the applicant is informed in hisnative language, of possible options, as weil as of the overall procedure and the difference between refugee status and temporary protec-tion.
Finally, we should also bear in mind that behind the often back-stabbing and self-righteous debates on the refugee issue between bureaucrats, lawyers and politicians lies the tragic reality of human fate, considerable international co-operation, as weil as the intent and hope for responsible national policy.
Maryellen Fullerton
A Rejoinder
Dr. Béla Jungbert describes my article on refugee law and policy in Hungary as one-sided. If by one-sided, he means that my research in Hungary led me to a specific point of view that is critical of current policy, he is correct. If by one-sided, he means that the fact that I do not read and speak Hungarian required me to rely on interpreters and transla-tions, as weil as sources available in English, German, and French, he is correct. If by one-sided, he means that I interviewed or listened to only those with a certain limitcd range of views, he is wrong.
As a scholar, I consider it fundamental to base my research on as wide a range of in-formed views as possible. To that end, 1 made it a goal to speak to as many people as I could who are knowledgeable about rcfugees and f1uent in English. During the twelve months 1 lived in Hungary, I spoke to asylum seekers, refugees, migrants, church workers, municipal officials, Refugee Department officials, employees of the Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs, academics, private lawyers, journalists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, medical personnel, teachers, non-government organisation workers, staff members of international organisations, diplomats, consular officials processing resettle-ment requests, and many others. [ was impressed by the range of views and I learned to listen carefully to contradictory perspectives rather than to take anyone's view for granted. Indeed, I was impressed wi th the robust debate and criticism I heard about refu-gee policy and about many other aspects of government while I was inHungary, I found the openness of debate and the self-oriticism of many Hungarians concerning these issues both mature and healthy.
I cannot say the same for Dr. Jungbert's response to my article. Without being too Freudian, I question whether his description of my article as vicious and self-gratifying is mere projection. 1 reject Dr. Jungbert's suggestion that my analysis should be ignored be-cause I come from a country whose migration and refugee policy is not perfect. If eriti-cism from abroad is only legitimate when voiced by those whose governments are perfect, ali international scholarly research and inquiry would cease.
Turning to the substance of Dr.Jungbert's rejection of my conclusion, that Hungarian refugee law and policy discriminate in favour of ethnic Hungarians, I will not repeat here my lengthy description and analysis, but only emphasise a few points. I do not think, and have not asserted in my article, that it is immoral or illegitimate for the Hungarian gov-ernment to grant preferences in migration and citizenship to those of Hungarian descent. I do think it is unlawful to use the refugee law and policy to discriminate in favour of ethnic
Hungarians. The statistics prepared by the Office of Refugee and Migrant Affairs that Dr.
Jungbert heads show that more than 130,000 asylum seekers and refugees entered Hun-galy between 1988 and 1995, that only 4,218 received refugee status, and that an over-whelming majority of those who received refugee status are of Hungarian descent. These statistics raise the questions of what has happened to most of the other refugees and why so few non-Hungarians, especially those fleeing persecution and ethnic c\eansing in the fonner Yugoslavia, have received refugee status. In my article 1 examined many reasons that make it more likely that ethnic Hungarians would seek refugee status and many rea-sons that might inhibit non-Hungarians from doing so. 1 have discussed each of the factors that Dr. Jungbert c1aims 1 have fai led to consider. Ultimately, 1 concluded that these rea-sons might account for a substantial difference in the rates of refugee recognition, but could not explain the overwhelming disparity. Dr. Jungbert has provided no evidence that causes me to change my conclusion. His mere assertion that the Hungarian refugee laws do not allow discrimination and that no discrimination exists does not undermine the conclusions 1 reached based on research, observation, and analysis. 1 do note that Dr.
Jungbert refers to the UNHCR's reduction of funds and criticism of Hungarian refugee policy. My article represents my view and not that of the UNHCR, but perhaps Dr. Jung-bert's intemperate response to my criticism is somehow linked to his frustration with cr iticism from other sources.