The effects of Hungarian Defence Forces (HDF) border security deployment on the civilian population’s subjective sense of security

Communities that are directly affected by the migration crisis perceive and evaluate events differently than others who live farther off, and just have got information about the events from different news channels. The civilian population’s attitudes toward the military or security forces are key factor in maintaining conflict-free or in minimizing conflict situation in times of various crises. Civilians living in an operation area are directly affected by the operations with the events often taking place on their own property. It follows from that the civilians in the operation area relate differently to migration and migrants, and border protecting troopers and policemen too, than others who live far off. In this research we have focused to regional level, because the national researches that try to examine the irregular migration mostly on a national representative sample, so these have limited ability to provide reliable information on smaller territorial units. Otherwise this study is analysing how the attitudes changed in these smaller territorial units or societies which was affected by the migratory crisis directly. A further aim of this analysis is to show those possible explanations and interpretations which are lying behind the quantitative data. This study aims to show the attitudes to migration among the civilian population and the changes in their subjective sense of security, based on empirical data, along the Southern border in Hungary.


METHODOLOGY
In the time of our fieldwork and datagathering the Western Balkan was the third busiest route (FRONTEX 2015a;FRONTEX 2015b) among the migration routes.At this route mainly two main groups arriving to the EU (BESENYÕ 2016).Firstly, western Balkan states residents (from Albania, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro) and secondly, Asian or Middle Eastern migrants who arrive through the Bulgarian-Turkish and Greek-Turkish borders, then trying to get to Austria, Germany or the northern countries via Hungary (KUSCHMINDER -DE BRESSER -SIEGEL 2015).Besides, this route manages the most Syrian and Somali migrants.Those who arrive to Macedonia, smugglers transport them by taxi cabs to the Serbian borders.For a long period this route was mainly used by illegal migrants from West Balkan states who were heading to European countries (FRONTEX 2015a), but recently these states citizens (except Kosovo) can travel without visa in the EU, so their number decreased significantly.In 2012, approximately 33,000 refugees arrived from Western Balkan states to Europe.This is 53 per cent higher than the year before (2011), and means 12 per cent of all refugee applications in EU countries.These migrants are not likely to return after their visa expires simultaneously, number of illegal migrants from Kosovo (especially Albanians) increased.In the beginning of 2014, monthly 1,000 Kosovan arrived via this route, since September this amount increased to 9,000 (BESENYÕ 2016). 1ost of the published analyzes of migration and migrants have been discussed with the notion of xenophobia (KRISKA 2014. 36.).These are the ideas that built such an analysis -usually a questionnaire -where the conceptualization of the surveys is determinated that every respondents are xenophobic who has gave negative answers in the questionnaire about migration and had negative opinions of migration.These analyzes -the conceptual decision on this course -point out that Hungarian society is explicitly against immigration (WETZEL 2011).One of the most important goals of our research was therefore to explore the deeper cause-effect relationships behind the generalization claims.
We have investigated the different communities (rural and city) that are directly affected by migration crises.We combined the quality and quantitative data collections in Csongrád County in the three settlements of the southern border region of Hungary: Ásotthalom, Mórahalom and Röszke.The research methods were carried out in two phases.

IRREGULAR MIGRATION APPEARING IN THE VICINITY OF CSONGRÁD COUNTY'S SERBIAN BORDER REGION
The irregular migration as a phenomenon could be perceived not only in 2015, but a lot sooner at three cities of the Csongrád county border region.Although the larger part of the people living here (40.4%) came across with migrants in 2014, the migrants' memory had become widely known between 1990 and 2016.
The first increase in the percievement of the phenomenon can be observed in the year of 2012.According to the interviews before 2012 only smaller "really immigrant-like" groups had arrived, the "larger Black African groups" appeared first in 2012, in addition to that there was a continuous inflow of the smaller groups of non-Black migrants.The migration phenomenon at the examined border had reached the critical level in 2012 when it has started to disturb the local population.
The different parts at time between the beginning of the migration crisis (according to the people living at the southern border at 2012) and its height (September 2015) were intertwined with the appearance of different ethnic groups.The migration pressure became "unbearable" at the borderline when the Kosovan "refugees"arrived.However this Kosovan migration flow made the already existing problem "mesmerising".Regarding the migrants arriving from Kosovo a very negative picture started to formulate among the locals.For one thing, this pessimist view was in relation to the "new immigrants" behavior and their appearance."The Kosovans from one point of view neither behaved, nor appeared as the real refugees" (i.e. the "regular", formerly often seen by the locals, not European-looking, badly dressed), from the other they were "irresponsible", not once they were often out in the fields endangering infants and children several times.The ones arriving from Kosovo arrived typically in families, while the Middle-Eastern and Black African migrants consisted usually of men.Nevertheless, contrary to the former refugee-groups the Kosovans have "arrived obviously organized to the borders".The Riot Police (Készenléti Rendõrség) appeared at the borders in 2015, and at about the same time, in March the number of the Kosovans dropped almost to the zero, however the migration flow itself didn't languish, in fact, it was strenghtened by the newcomers from other countries.
The Hungarian government had serious problems with the growing crowd of arriving migrants.In 2009 they were coming mainly from Kosovo (FRONTEX 2010a), but in 2012 migration became more "international".The next year an unprecedented migration crisis developed.Almost 20,000 immigrants entered Hungary illegally and applied for refugee status in 2013.Most of them were Kosovans, but there were Pakistanis, Afghans, Moroccans, Algerians and Sub-Sahrawians.This was the moment when Hungary strengthened its border guards and introduced a new regulation on refugee status applications from 1st January, 2013 (FRONTEX 2014).This was not followed by a radical decrease in illegal migration.In July 2013, 130 illegal migrants were caught on an average day.They were taken to registration points, from where they immediately headed to Austria or Germany and applied for refugee status in those countries.The number of migrants decreased appreciably in the second half of the year, but since 2014 there was a significantly emerging number of refugees from Turkey.Hungarian authorities tried to reduce it with different instruments.(BESENYÕ 2016) According to a Frontex report 43,357 illegal migrants were registered in 2014, that means a significant, 46 per cent increase.Illegal migrants were mostly Kosovans (22,059 individuals), Afghans (8,342 individuals) and Syrians (7,320 individuals).

Meetings
Among the Hungarian research we find relevant data in the surveys of TÁRKI 2 and the University of Szeged, Department of Sociology concerning how many of the interviewed men have met with migrants.The percentage of the people who 12 months previously to the interviews have crossed paths with refugees in the 2015 national representative surveys of TÁRKI is 27%3 (SIMONOVICS 2015:13), in the 2016 Szeged research it is 80%,4 while in the border region examined by us it is 92%.

From compassion to rejection
After the first meetings, that is at the beginning of the irregular migration  the population was characterized by solidarity and supporting behavior.Our surveys also point out that before September 2015, namely at the tip of the crisis the borderline municipalities and civilians -until the appearance of the national and international media -were practically left to themselves, regardless that they indicated on lots of forums the intensifying migrational pressure disturbing the settlements and the problems surrounding it.
At this time the provision of the migrants had come from self-effort, local and municipal cooperation, and in effect stayed this way until the migration wave didn't reach its height and got larger media publicity.Only at this time did the miscellaneous -non-local -non-governmental organizations (NGO), which -in the light of increased media attention -got bigger publicity than the civilians or the municipalities helping at the place.The beginning, pre-crisis supporting behavior -which was mainly invisible in front of the larger publicity in absence of the media presence and other reports, sith it had no newsvalue -later became more and more distant, and due to the development of the chaotic setting, the restoration of the order and security it became more and more rejecting towards the migrants and the migration.The change of attitude is partly because of the migrants' multitudinous and uncontrolled appearance at the villages, this foreign masses' demographic composition (most of them are young men), their unsuppliedness and their behavior different from the local cultural customs (Póczik 2014) created more and more repugnance and even more it generated fear among the population.5

THE DECREASE OF THE SUBJECTIVE SENSE OF SECURITY Sense of danger, conflicts
Already at a 2014 questionary it has been shown that the immigrants' lengthy sojourn at a given settlement would be get conflicts between the locals and the migrants; at Röszke and Horgos the interviewed persons' 47% thought likewise (KRISKA 2014.46.).Although the result of the two surveys -because of the events that took place at the time and the diversification of the territorial demarcation -can be compared only limitedly; it is meaningful, that the distribution of the answers for the similar question put up by us in 2016 shows a drastic increase in the number of the persons frightened from the conflict, which -in May, 2016 -has risen even to 84,3%. 6he escalation of the sense of danger and the intensification of fear can be traced back on the one hand to the lack of proper supply of the migrants, because the large number of uncontrolled and unsupplied groups roaming continuously through the green border tried a lot of times to aquire the things necessary for their further travel (food, water, mobile charging, etc. as well as obtaining night shelter) from the locals, which in some cases created conflicts.12 months previously our data survey conducted in May-June, 2016 the 41% of the questionned felt themselves in danger. 7 There is a statistically justifiable relation between two groups regarding the frequency in the sense of danger: those of women and those who live in the periphery, who felt themselves more and often in danger than men or the people living in the center.Almost every second woman (49%), but at least almost one third of them had experience of some kind of fearful situation regarding migrants or in connection with migrants between May, 2015 and May-June, 2016.
Among the population at the outskirts there have been more frequent situations that created the feeling of danger then among the civilians living in the center.We have examined by age group and by settlement the frequency of danger, starting from the presumption that the elder and the people living in villages closer to the moving route felt themselves more often in danger, but we couldn't find statistically justifiable relation between these groups.
We collected information concerning the concrete situation, when in our questionnaire we asked the answerers, if they could describe in an open question the events causing the sense of danger.The situations creating the feeling of danger concentrated around four security-determining problem: 1.The appearance and the continous flow of foreign people in the vicinity of their home "At the weekend my children played in the courtyard.My smallest son (6 years old) runs in our old courtyard crying: »Mommy, mommy they are here, the immigrants are coming after me.«I was alone at home with the children.There were 10-15 immigrant young men.We were very frightened and afraid.I would rather call it fear and shock, then danger, but it could have easily had a different outcome." 2. The feeling of helplessness and vulnerability at the sight of the ineffectiveness of the law enforcement forces' steps.
"In my garden, in the street there is a huge, pretentious and shouting crowd, who rather push me then stand.I was frightened because the policemen only escorted them, which was equal to nothing." 3. Regular home violations, damages in private property "They collected in my own house 14 migrants.4 persons in the WC, 7 in the hen-house, 3 in the wood-shed.However thanks to the fast reaction of the police and the military nothing serious happened."

Human traffickers appearance near the villages
"The migrants settled down in front of our gates.We didn't dare to sleep at night.The human traffickers were in front of our house."8

The appearance of the organization of the migration
One of the most disturbing tendencies that had made its presence felt were the everyday lifeinfluencing and the population's security-reducing organized crime, namely the human traffickers appearance (65,4%), right next to the flow of the migrants (58,4%), the migrants' outlook (56,4%) and their behavior with a 42.8% answering frequency.(HAUTZINGER 2017 69-83 pp.) The organized trafficking of the migrants, the smugglers appearance during the Kosovan migrant wave was the first thing apparent for the population.Regardless of the relaxing of the wave, the organized trafficking of the migrants was further underway, and it was still well comprehensible for the locals living in the area.The difference appeared only in that other nationals arrived organized to the border.One of the groups were the "day-time arrivers' group", among whom there were families and they didn't reject the registration procedure.The other group, "the forbidden night-time border-crossers" consisted mainly of men and they headed for the meeting point agreed upon, where the human traffickers had already been waiting for them.
The uncertainity regarding the situation's controllability and proper handling is obvious from the answers given to the questions asked in the questionnaire.More then the third of the participants (34,3%) thinks that the migration to our country became uncontrollable, though altogether this proportion is close to the two-third (73,4%), if we count the somewhat concurrent.At the time of the October, 2015 questionnaire made in the Visegrád Group (V4) the percentage of the concurrents to the statement by some degree in Hungary was 62%, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia 69-69%, in Poland 52%.(BERNÁT et al. 2015.)The proportion of the people living at the southern border, those who think that the uncontrollable immigration puts the country at risk is even higher (93%).

HANDLING EFFORTS OF THE PHENOMENON BY THE BORDER POLICE
Ordering the Riot Police to the southern border (February, 2015.) the population hoped for the settlement of the situation in a short time, but this expectation didn't realize.Contrary to every effort of the police the situation started to become unbearable, the policemen practically were able only to "bus the collected migrants to Szeged".They weren't able to protect the population -mostly the people living in the villages -from the conflicts created by the migrants' heavy inflow, thus the security sensitivity of the people dropped heavily.The migrants stopped, "took over" vehicles, regular bus-lines, so not merely the locals' private property's integrity, but also the traffic wasn't provided in the area.
"The refugees broke into a car at Kissor and stole it.Since then I fear for my cars.
Once as I was coming home there were a lot of people standing near the road, and as we drove along them they were hitting our car, asking our help to take them away.This was very frightening." "I came from the periphery by automobile with trailer.In front of me on the road the rioting migrants near the street, who lit a fire.Policemen guarded them who warned me -if necessary -to go slowly with closed windows.Because I can't reverse with a trailer, I went further with a trembling stomach..." At night they knocked at the doors of a farm, or they went without even a knock while the dogs were barking.
"They came to the estate and they wanted electricity.They were swinging poles at me." Since the locals felt that the dispatched police forces -regardless of their tiresome effortsare unable to handle the situation, so the flow of the migrant groups wouldn't disturb the everyday life of the civilians, continue to create fear or cause economic damage -among other things a fall of income, for example in tourism -they were forced to find alternative solutions, so that neither the migrants in groups wouldn't go through the populated areas, nor the human traffickers would appear at the inner parts of the villages.

THE ROLE OF THE HUNGARIAN DEFENCE FORCES IN THE BORDER CONTROL AND ITS PUBLIC PERCEPTION
The situation was resolved by the deployment of the border barrier as well as by the participation of the Hungarian Defence Forces in the border control tasks, which put an end in a short time to the unbearable conditions at the settlements, and order was restored.(BESENYÕ 2017) 87,1% of the citizens in the three examined villages agreed with the building of the border barrier,9 and 96% of the people living in the cross-border settlements support the participation of the Hungarian Defence Forces in the border control tasks.
The presence of the soldiers: the "sight of the armed soldiers had a relaxing effect on the people", and it increased the subjective feeling of security at the settlements.
The civilian population after a long time could see again Hungarian soldiers in the line of duty, when the forces of the Hungarian military were dispatched to handle the migration crisis.Again, since 1991 the social image of the Hungarian Defence Forces shows a deminishing tendency (ESZÉNYI 2001, cited by RÓTH 2005. 7.), which is partly because for the public the military security was relegated to the third place after the social and the public ones in the last 25 years (RÓTH 2005) and partly because the civilian population not or just very rarely meets military personnel on duty. 10hus inasmuch the civilians see, that what level of work does the military do, and that its social usefulness hasn't declined, that way the social image of the soldiers could improve.This is supported by the measurable differences between the national11 and the action-regional (Ásotthalom, Mórahalom, Röszke) representative data.The proportion of people largely content with the military's control of the illegal migration -in the case of both regional narrowingis more then two-third (national: 75%; action-regional: 85,9%), nevertheless more then the half of the people living in the action-region, but only a quarter of the national population is totally content with the border control-duty of the soldiers.Examining the differences it can be seen that nationally the proportion of those who said that they can't form an opinion about the question is also higher (with near 10 percent).
The people of the action-region described the role of the Hungarian Defence Forces in the fight against illegal migration more favourably -although with a small margin -,12 than that of the police.
Another important part of the country's opinion about the military is the trust in the defence abilities of the Defence Forces, which is influenced also by the activities seen during duty -equipment, military technology, organization, execution, etc.
From the results it can be concluded that the people living in the territory (action-region) who are directly exposed to irregular migration -where the military executed border control operations -place their trust more in that the Hungarian Defence Forces are able to protect the nation's security in a migration crisis.

NEW SOLIDARITY. CIVIL SUPPORT FOR THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE BORDER PROTECTION
Most of the analysis' were made from among the various non-governmental organizations that had to do with irregular migration about those volunteers, groups and organizations, that were concerned with the support and provision of the migrants, so they were solidaric with the migrants.During the events, the public media and the leading television channels broadcasted their news focusing explicitly on the volunteers helping the migrants.In a lot of cases the migrants used this to gather support for their goals, to gain the solidarity of the locals -the people (BERNÁT et al. 2015:76).Among these grass-root, locally organized civilian groups there were also types which aimed to help the work of the policemen and soldiers on border control-duty, thus a new solidarity form appeared in the line of events.
The reason why we regard the civilian participation evolving along the solidarity movements pointing in two different paths worthy of evaluation is because it is similar in its course and its tendency to the change of attitude towards the migrants in the case of the people living at the borderline.
The solidarity towards the policemen and soldiers taking part in the border control becomes publicly apparent in the middle of September 2015, when the Facebook-group "Zsaruellátó" published its following appeal: "We decided it is time that the people -namely We and You -of the country should unite in support of the guys serving overtime -just as we/ and you had already done a lot of times.Let's serve and protect those, who do it for us everyday!"(Source: NLcafe: 13 September, 2015.http://www.nlcafe.hu/ezvan/20150913/zsaruellato-rendorok-roszke/)"The Zsaruellátó is a civilian intiative, an organization estabilished independently from parties, whose goal is that we show for the »modern hussars« that they have the full support of the civilian population.We don't criticise nothing, we don't believe that their povision would be insufficient or not according to standards; we only want to show that we stand out for those who protect us.We are able to do this by helping their work where and how it is necessary [...] Althoughwe send the donations in full to the soldiers on duty at the borders, we can only give back in parts to the appropriate places that unbelievable amount of love and faith what thousands of the donators feel.Yes, the people believe in them and they are grateful to them.We are working for those men, who gave their lifes to the safeguarding of security, who work 26-30 hours in this difficult international situation, and are far away from their loved ones for weeks.[...] We thank all of them, and we wish them persistence for the upcoming events too!" (https://www.facebook.com/zsaruellato/info?tab=page_info) The solidarity, support of the people of the country thus besides the migrants became apparent also towards the Law Enforcement Forces and Armed Forces.This helping intention presented itself not only at the level of group organization but also at the level of individuals, namely when more and more people volunteered at the different corps of the Hungarian Defence Forces, for that the MH HKNYP published the following appeal: "In the recent days the Hungarian Defence Forces Replacement and Central Record Command (MH HKNYP) was approached by several civilian nationals to take part in the tasks caused by the migration crisis and the building in the temporary border barrier, so they would volunteer ardently for military duty."(29 September, 2015.http://www.honvedelem.hu/cikk/53318_az_mh_hadkiegeszito_es_kozponti_nyilvantarto_parancsnoksag_kozlemenye)

CONCLUSION, CONSEQUENCES
1.One of the most important connclusions of the survey evaluating the attitudes of the civilian population of Csongrad county directly implicated in the migration crisis is that the people reject the large, uncontrollable migration along practical, palpable everyday-life concerning viewpoints and experiences, similarly to the opinion of the entire Hungarian society on migration.13 2. According to the data of the researches conducted at Szeged among the 15 year olds the percentage of considering opinions (the unsecure-type) is the highest all along.In the period between 2001-2015 the proportion of the tendency of the approving views shows rather increasement, while at the same time the diffusion in the pro-isolation attitude shows a declining trend.Nevertheless, in 2016 these tendencies will break and the values going to move to the opposite direction.
3. The rejection of the migration is not against the migrants, namely nations, ethnicities and ethnical groups or people, but the uncontrollability of the course of events, its creation of subjective sense of danger and the effects of its intrinsic security risks.
4. 92% of the answerers have personal experience about the migrants, which is essenially negative.
5. The large, uncontrollable migration and the conflicts and atrocities surrounding it create fear and sense of danger in the population of the borderline villages.
6.Besides the holding up of the migrants (by the border barrier) the involvement of the military in the border control-tasks has also got larger support.
7. Involving the Hungarian Defence Forces in the border control-tasks brought order to the chaotic situation, and its presence had a relaxing effect on the subjective sense of security of the borderline civilians.
8. Next to the declinement of the subjective feeling of security and the terrorist attacks the decrease of the trust placed in the institutions guaranteeing state sovereignty is well conceivable.9.After the 2016 Brussels bombings the trust placed in the law enforcement agencies has declined, although the ratio of the decrease in the case of the police is not apparent, while in the case of the already higher trust index of the Defence Forces is considerable.
10.The citizens expect security protection regarding terrorist attacks not just mainly from the police, but from the military too.
11.The appearance of the Defence Forces, their recent visibility during duty created favourable attitudes among the civilian population, it has a positive effect on the social image of the military.
1st phases: Qualitative methods, with unstructural personal interviews In this phase interviewers content on illegal immigration was grouped around five key opinions: 1. Illegal migration and the appearance of the course for the first time 2. Changes of attitudes towards immigrants 3. The subjective sense of security 4. Border protection task just with Police 5. HDF appearance and manage of the situation