The article analyses the anti-immigration campaign of the Hungarian government as an element of the securitization of migration, both at the level of political discourse and at that of political legislative instruments. The securitization of migration is seen as a filter through which all migrants are passed, in order to select those who have the same cultural background and, therefore, could adapt to the house country’s national culture and do not represent a threat to the national security. In the case of Hungary, the securitization of migration unfolds on two levels. At the discursive level the migrants are presented as a threat to Hungarian culture, endangering the nation-building process. The migrants are also identified as a threat to the Hungarian economy, since they are allegedly going to take up jobs that otherwise, Hungarians would have been able to access, and to the whole of Europe, creating a connection between the presence of immigrants and the incidence of terrorist acts. The second level is of an institutional kind, involving the adoption of public policies and the creation of security agencies that exercise control over migration through a certain set of practices, such as the bureaucratic ones. The Hungarian anti-immigration policy seems to serve the Kremlin’s objectives, being directed against the European Union.
The State Strikes Back: Immigration Policy in the European Union
