A more nuanced look at this European dimension is largely absent from the migration debate in Hungary. For the government, the EU is the source of “permissive” migration policies. For those like MigSzol who oppose the government’s policies, the EU is also not  a source of hope given that the Union is the architect of the very policies that have created this “buffer zone” at Europe’s Southern and Eastern borders. Indeed, beyond criticizing the government’s fear-mongering rhetoric  - which harnesses xenophobia and islamophobia in order to engineer a moral panic in Hungarian society - we also have to target the even bigger culprit: the Dublin Regulation. 

The Dublin Regulation forces people to apply for asylum in the country where they have first entered the European Union, and consequently forces recognized refugees to stay, work and integrate in that country. It is very difficult for migrants and refugees to find a place to live in Hungary. So difficult that an increasing number of them, regardless of legal status, choose living in Western Europe without papers over being homeless on the streets of Budapest. 

At the same time the Dublin Regulation effectively robs migrants of the kinship- and friendship-networks they have in other European countries. Searching a refuge is in most cases an unpredictable journey, not a planned-out trip. Given the precarious routes available to them, refugees are unable to choose their country of entry and, given the regulations, stay. In short: if there was no Dublin, there would be no excuse for the fence as there would be no buffer zones, and Hungary would not be the factory of sans papiers that it is now.

Thus, we face a struggle on two fronts: against the outrageously racist policies and rhetoric of the Hungarian government and Jobbik, as well as against the Dublin Regulation. The latter is a struggle that has long been staged by fellow activists in other European countries. As Migszol, we think that it is high time for Hungary to think and talk about Europe’s involvement in perpetuating a life-endangering regime of access to asylum. 

All this said, let’s end on a positive, if challenging, note. Following the extremely successful counter-campaign by the Hungarian Two Tailed Dog Party and Vastagbor, a campaign that mobilized thousands of Hungarians, we simply refuse to see Hungary as a xenophobic and racist society. The challenge, then, is the following: how do we mobilize all this energy to fight against the government's policy as well as the Dublin regulation?

Sunday, 8th June 2014, Migszol members returned to the Debrecen refugee camp. The goal of this visit was to get more information about the consequences in the camps, open and closed, after our protest on the 17th May. We heard many alarming stories regarding detention of minors, deportations to Bulgaria, hunger strikes and refugees sewing their lips in protest - but also some good news of friendly and kind social workers and guards. And of course we took some selfies. 

Five Migszol members travelled to Debrecen to talk with refugees and asylum seekers who were happy to see us again. Fortunately, we had the opportunity to socialize with asylum seekers who have recently been released from the Debrecen detention centre. Some of the refugees that talked to Migszol members were those who participated in the protest in May. Our protest took place not long ago, and it’s still too soon to see the effects of it; no changes have been noticed by the people living in the open camp and in the detention centre. We state again that albeit we believe asylum seekers and refugees should not be kept in camps, but while this is the case, we are looking to improvements in reception conditions the camps. 

Detention of minors and lack of legal aid

A 17-year old refugee from Sierra Leone shared his story with us. Before the Migszol protest, he was detained for six months after entering Hungary without a passport. He has many friends in the jail, and recounted experience of the violence asylum seekers encounter almost daily: disagreements with the security come with the risk of physical assault and losing any money that the asylum seeker might have. He was never given a lawyer or social worker. During our interviews with ex-detainees, who were sent to the Debrecen open camp, we realized that the ratio of detainees to social workers in very high. Also communication is often problematic. Furthermore, the fact that in all detention centers state lawyers can only spend five to ten minutes a week with the asylum seekers and the fact that lawyers from Hungarian Helsinki Committee are more present in the camps than state lawyers, show the failure of the Hungarian state to provide legal access to the asylum seekers and refugees in Hungary.

Debrecen Camp Report and Is Hungary Still Deporting to Bulgaria?



A second report by Migráns Szolidaritás Csoport / Migrant Solidarity Group of Hungary from the Debrecen Camp and a question for the Hungarian state about deportations of vulnerable asylum seekers to Bulgaria.

In our previous report we described the situation in the Debrecen camp in general, this time we focus on the specific issue of deportations of asylum seekers in Hungary to Bulgaria.


Recently in January, the UNHCR advised that Dubin II/III deportations of asylum-seekers to Bulgaria should cease immediately, not only because of the horrific conditions in the refugee camps and excessive detentions, but because the process of determining whether someone (an asylum seeker) receives a refugee status is quite simply no longer working.


In April 2014, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) and Amnesty International re-stated their call for an immediate stop of deportations to Bulgaria. For more info about Bulgaria, you can see a photo series by UNHCR, and of course the Bulgaria-section of Border Monitoring. And let’s not forget that extreme right attacks against refugees are on the rise, and that Bulgaria is currently building a fence on the Turkish border to keep Syrian refugees out.


As we heard from asylum-seekers at the Debrecen camp, some of them have received a paper that says their asylum procedure has been stopped in Hungary because their fingerprints have been found in the Bulgarian system. We asked the press office of immigration office what on earth is going on — could it still be, that asylum-seekers are deported to Bulgaria even though it is clearly an outrageous denial of people’s right to seek asylum? Not only did we find out that the Bulgarian immigration office (or SAR, ‘State Agency for Refugees’) had visited their Hungarian counterparts (see OIN report in Hungarian about their meeting, here), but also we were directly told by the OIN that because of contradictory information on the situation in Bulgaria, Hungary has not decided whether deportations there should stop. Now this, for us, is a confusing answer - neither a simple YES or NO answer -  so, we wrote back asking that what exactly is the contradictory information OIN refers to and whether this could also be made public - well, at the time of this writing, we still have not heard back from the OIN on this issue.


Now, zooming our focus back to the Debrecen camp once more - let us remember that asylum-seekers are not just numbers, but are actual people! Not to mention the fact outlined by the reports from Bulgaria that were referenced earlier, we’d like to draw attention to the fact that OIN still threatens to deport people to Bulgaria who are suffering from severe mental and physical illnesses.

As an example, at the Debrecen camp we met a Palestinian asylum seeker who  previously suffered a back injury in Bulgaria and today is only able to pass his days with the help of strong sedatives, and yet still suffers from severe depression. How can the OIN possibly justify the deportation of severely ill people into the well documented poor conditions such as those in Bulgaria? Just a few days ago, April 15 2014, the UNHCR specifically warned against deportation of vulnerable people to Bulgaria. But will the Hungarian state listen?


Addendum


Stay tuned for our next plans of action at the Debrecen camp. And, by the way, the number of cockroaches and bedbugs in the Debrecen camp is reaching quite impressive amounts — although still OIN claims that the problem has been ‘totally’ eliminated. We will report back again on the issue of living conditions inside the camp on a later date.