International migration research network set up in Budapest

Hungary’s Migration Research Institute, the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA, the Israeli Immigration Policy Center, and the Observatoire de l’immigration et de la demographie aim to cooperate and “integrate their knowledge and skills in a network”, Viktor Marsai, head of the Hungarian institute, said.

The network will organise conferences and present publications in an effort to “counterbalance approaches to migration based solely on humanitarian aspects, which have in the past decades overpowered public opinion,” Marsai said.

Other aspects such as security and the economic and cultural impacts on recipient societies should also be considered in the discourse on migration, he said.

Marsai also spoke about “the importance” of national sovereignty “so that states can determine whom they want to grant entry to and whom to deny this,” he added.