The Hungarian Government has recently launched a national consultation on immigration in order to have people’s opinions about how “Hungary should defend itself against illegal border crossing” since “Brussels has failed in handling immigration (and in responding) to the type of threat.

The Consultation is a totally misleading questionnaire aimed to legitimize government’s policies of closure through a populist approach. In the facts the questionnaire is definitively impartial and it prompts the interview in answering what the government wants to hear.

In the introductory statement we can read that “economic immigrants cross the border illegally, pretending to be refugees while, in reality, they seek social allowance and jobs”.

In sum, they are perceived as “a new type of threat that we need to stop” in order to “not let economic migrants endangering Hungarian people’s job and livelihoods”.

How can the answer be impartial and balanced with this introduction?

The same title of the Consultation illustrates the government’s point of view: “National Consultation on Immigration and Terrorism”. It implicitly takes for granted that there is a direct and positive correlation between immigration and terrorism. And in facts a specific question would like to know if the respondent is agree with the opinion that “according to some, immigration, which is badly handled by Brussels, is connected with an expansion of terrorism”.

Is not necessary to be a social research expert to find out what is wrong in questions like this one. First of all it matches three separated facts together; immigration, the European policies on the issue and terrorism. Secondly it prompts the respondent to be agreed with the opinion of “some”.

In 12 questions the government aims to cover economic migrations, international protection claims, the European policies, terrorism and the government responses.

What emerges for the questionnaire is the confusion that the Hungarian government has over economic migrants, Brussels’ policies and illegal border-crossing.

The result are questions like “do you agree that the illegal border-crossers should be turned back to their own countries in the possibly shortest time?”. There is no idea that they might not be send back to own countries because they are escaping from civil wars and massive violence.

In addition the question are totally unbalanced; how can somebody respond “I don’t agree” to a question such as “do you agree with the Hungarian government, that instead of supporting immigrants, the support of Hungarian families and future babies is needed?”. Of course Hungarian government has to sustain families and future babies, but is this means to sustain only the 100% Hungarian nationals?. Are not Syrians, Ukrainians children as well? Are not the mixed couple families as the Hungarian ones?.  And why is taken for granted that exist a trade-off between sustaining migrants and support Hungarian families and future babies? Supporting migrants doesn’t implicitly lead to reduce the assistance to families. A good and effective government shall be able to do both through the most appropriate policies. On contrary the Hungarian government shows its inability to do it.

At least is possible to agree with one point expressed in the consultation; that is that “Brussels’ policies regarding immigration have failed and a new approach is needed”. But this new approach cannot be the one that the Hungarian government has in mind.