display
The migration politicians of the SPD parliamentary group want to expand family reunification for migrants entitled to protection.
“Refugees should be able to live together with their families like other people”, says a position paper entitled “Overall Migration Concept”, which was developed by the Migration and Integration working group and which is available to WELT.
"We want to uphold the basic right to family unity and enable all those entitled to protection to live with their spouse and their children."
This so-called privileged family reunification currently only applies to people who have been recognized as refugees under the Geneva Refugee Convention or as persons entitled to asylum.
For years, however, a dispute raged over the group of so-called subsidiary protection beneficiaries.
They are people who enjoy neither refugee nor asylum protection - but should not be deported because they are threatened with serious damage in their home country, for example due to a civil war.
In 2018, the federal government decided to allow relatives to move in for this group as well - albeit strictly limited: a total of around 1,000 relatives per month should be allowed to move there.
display
The SPD politicians are now pleading for this cap to be overturned.
"We want to abolish the legal limit of 1000 per month," says the paper.
It is not in the best interests of the child to separate families for long periods of time - or to make them have to choose or split between their children in the countries of origin or transit and Germany.
The SPD MPs also want to expand legal immigration for humanitarian reasons in other areas.
"Together with the UNHCR, we want to increase the admission of persons entitled to protection in the EU via fixed quotas," says the paper.
Germany currently provides 5500 places per year as part of an EU resettlement program.
The SPD politicians are now pleading for the capacities to be “appropriately” designed and for “to be increased to 10,000 people per year in the short term”.
With a view to the causes of flight, they call for protection for people fleeing environmental disasters and the effects of climate change.
"Environmental and climate changes as well as the effects of international trade policy must be recognized internationally as causes of flight and effective protective mechanisms created," it says.
For some years now, natural disasters and environmental damage have been among the causes of flight “clearly ahead of armed conflicts”.
display
At the same time, the paper calls for greater restrictions on migration.
The specialist politicians speak out in favor of increased support for voluntary departures and “consistent deportations” of people who are not entitled to stay.
To this end, cooperation with countries of origin should be expanded.
States that refused to take their citizens back would have to face consequences - for example when issuing visas.
The unwillingness of some countries of origin to cooperate is a main problem for the slow repatriations.
For people who are already in Germany, the Social Democrats are calling for an "old case regulation" with a deadline.
A permanent right of residence should be granted to anyone who has been in Germany for at least two years, earns a living or goes to school and has not committed a criminal offense.
display
With the concept, the MPs provide an impetus: less for the government work in the black-red coalition than for their own party, which has been looking for a unified stance on the big issue of migration for years.
For a long time, very different camps faced each other: local and specialist politicians on the one hand, who advocate orderly migration - and the smaller but vocal group of advocates of a migration right for everyone who would like to abolish deportations entirely.
As a result, a clear and comprehensive position was missing - which repeatedly led to open conflicts.
The paper says: The SPD has made it clear that it wants to offer refugees protection from war and political persecution, but has not given “a sufficient answer to the state's actual or perceived loss of control”.
In the past few months there have been many discussions in the party - also on the question of how to deal with the migrants from Moria.
But a comprehensive and clear program that everyone can refer to: it is still missing.
"We have achieved a lot of debate in the party," says the migration policy spokesman Lars Castellucci, who drafted the paper. "We need clear concepts that we can refer to in the public debate." People not only asked how Integration succeeds. "They want to know what our answers are to the challenges of migration, as they are currently showing, for example, on the Greek islands or Gran Canaria."
BAMF boss calls for more pressure on uncooperative countries of origin
The President of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, Hans-Eckhard Sommer, proposes to WELT to threaten unruly countries of origin of rejected asylum seekers with the reduction of visas.
Cooperative countries, on the other hand, should receive financial incentives.
Source: WORLD