BSW on migration and integration

The BSW commits to the right to asylum and to taking in people entitled to protection, but wants unregulated and illegal migration ended immediately. People with no claim to protection, those who abuse the asylum system and those who commit crimes are to be deported consistently. The party justifies this with the limited capacity of municipalities and social systems.

The BSW wants to keep the right to asylum. But people should no longer enter without permission. People with no right to asylum should have to leave. The same goes for people who commit crimes. The party says towns and schools are overloaded otherwise.

The platform treats asylum, managed labor migration and integration as separate policy fields. Immigration is to be guided by what states and municipalities can manage in terms of money, reception and integration. Towns, municipalities and the health, education and welfare systems are not to be overburdened. The BSW also calls for binding responsibility-sharing within Europe and for tackling the causes of flight.

The BSW considers targeted recruitment of foreign workers necessary but wants it handled by the state rather than private agencies. Skilled workers needed in their home countries are not to be recruited away. Priority is to go to education, training and qualification at home.

Saxony-Anhalt lacks workers. So the BSW wants to bring in skilled people from abroad. The state should organize this, not private firms. Other countries should not lose skilled people they need. But first, people at home should get good training.

The Federal Employment Agency is to coordinate recruitment abroad centrally, mostly in direct consultation with future employers. The Goethe-Institut and the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) are to expand their work, or additional language schools are to be set up that also offer mandatory courses on local norms and laws. Employers are to be required to help with finding housing, schools and childcare so that the whole family is integrated. In the long run, the platform wants the state to meet its need for skilled workers on its own, backed by family policy and attractive living conditions.

The BSW wants recognition of foreign vocational qualifications to become much faster and simpler. Missing partial qualifications are to be made up while working. The party sees integration into the labor market as the key to public acceptance of immigration.

Many immigrants learned a job abroad. The BSW wants to recognize these qualifications faster. If something is missing, people should learn it while working. That way, immigrants find work sooner.

The platform describes the procedures, some of which run through state administrative offices, as slow, inconsistent and bureaucratic. They are to be standardized and shortened using digital standards, along with better tools for comparing training paths. Where professionally justifiable, requirements for formal language certificates are to be made more practical. Flexible on-the-job top-up training is meant to keep existing skills from going unused.

The BSW wants to reverse the cut in language course funding at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and expand language training instead. Job-related courses at B2 level in particular are to increase significantly. The party regards good language skills as a precondition for skilled work and participation.

The federal government spends less on language courses. The BSW thinks that is a mistake. The party wants more language courses, especially for work. People who speak German well find good jobs more easily.

The platform points out that many immigrants have already lived in Germany for years. For that reason, vocational language courses at B2 level are to be expanded; B2 stands for advanced, independent use of a language. Language skills are described as the key to career advancement and participation in society.

The BSW wants to protect people with tolerated status from deportation if they hold jobs subject to social insurance, pay taxes or are in vocational training. In the party's view, those who contribute should get a reliable prospect of staying.

Some people may stay in Germany only for now. They are called tolerated persons. The BSW wants this: those who work or train may stay. These people should be able to plan safely.

Tolerated persons are people required to leave the country whose deportation has been temporarily suspended. The platform wants work and training to count as protection against deportation. It places this within a migration policy built on work, qualification and participation.

The BSW calls for mandatory language and civics courses for all immigrants who do not speak German. It also wants German tests before school entry, more early support for children from immigrant families and compulsory kindergarten attendance from age four. The party sees integration as a joint undertaking with clear rules.

Immigrants who speak no German should have to take courses. There they learn German and something about politics. Children should take a German test before school. From age four, children should have to go to kindergarten.

Support is meant for immigrants who accept the Basic Law, the laws and the free democratic order. Well-integrated immigrants are to act more often as integration guides for newcomers. According to the platform, integration does not require giving up one's own culture and religion, but it does require recognizing local norms and constitutional rights. The party describes integration as a process that is neither one-sided nor free of conflict.

The BSW wants immigrants and their children distributed more evenly across city districts, schools and kindergartens in order, as it sees it, to prevent parallel societies. This includes a cap on housing occupancy per district, a quota of at most 30 percent foreign children and the end of fixed elementary school districts. The federal government is to cover accommodation costs.

The BSW wants immigrants to live in all parts of a city. Not too many immigrants should live in one district. In kindergartens, at most 30 percent of children should be foreign. Fixed elementary school districts should end. The federal government should pay for housing.

Abolishing elementary school districts is meant to mix school classes more. To distribute children, transport capacity and money for travel to other districts are to be provided until the spatial concentration of immigrants has ended; at the same time, the platform calls schooling far from home impractical and wants measures in cities to build on existing housing and school structures. Cities are to be obliged to house migrants evenly. Social housing in city centers based on Hamburg's one-third mix of subsidized, owner-occupied and privately financed apartments is meant to prevent segregation.