CDU on migration and integration

The CDU wants to strengthen legal immigration of skilled and other workers, including through a federal "Work-and-Stay Agency" and a matching state office. At the same time, the requirements for naturalization should not be lowered.

Brandenburg needs skilled workers from abroad. An agency should match them with companies. Foreign degrees should be recognized faster. Work permits should come faster. But the rules for German citizenship should not get easier.

Recognition procedures should be sped up and work permits issued faster. The plan includes a package covering recognition of qualifications plus help with housing, language courses, daycare and school places. Employers should get more support in integrating immigrants into their workforce. According to the program, naturalization should come only at the end of a successful integration process.

The CDU wants to significantly reduce economic incentives for asylum seekers. Benefits are to be noticeably lowered and provided more often in kind or via payment cards.

The CDU wants less money for asylum seekers. They should get goods instead of cash more often. There should be a payment card. People who commit crimes should not be allowed to stay.

The CDU argues that so-called pull factors encourage asylum applications. Anyone who hides their identity, lacks protection status, breaks the rules or commits crimes is to have no right to stay and no full claim to benefits. Rejected asylum seekers are to return home consistently.

The CDU wants to continue fixed checks on the border with Poland until the EU's external borders are secured. The federal police should be allowed to turn back asylum seekers entering from other EU states.

Checks at the Polish border should continue. The federal police should get more staff. They should be able to turn back asylum seekers. This applies to people coming from other EU countries.

The CDU supports open internal borders in principle and sees checks as a last resort. Burdens on commuters, logistics and health care are to be kept low. Federal police staffing is to increase significantly. The CDU explicitly backs EU-run decision centers at the external border.

The CDU no longer wants to assign refugees without prospects of staying to local communities. They are to be able to stay up to 24 months in state initial reception centers.

Some refugees will likely not be allowed to stay. They should not be sent to towns anymore. They should live up to two years in a state center. Sports halls should no longer be used as shelters.

The state reception law is to be amended accordingly. Sports halls and similar public spaces should no longer be needed for housing. People without prospects who cannot be deported are to be housed at the central immigration office. After a final rejection, a state departure center is to provide intensive return counseling. There are to be no more additional voluntary admission programs.

The CDU wants rejected asylum seekers returned consistently, with criminals first. Police are to get more powers, and serious offenders should be deportable even to conflict countries.

Rejected asylum seekers should leave the country. Criminals should be deported first. Police should be allowed to do more. Serious criminals should be sent back even to war zones.

Algeria, Armenia, Morocco and Tunisia are to be classified federally as safe countries of origin. Hopeless asylum applications are to be processed faster and voluntary departure encouraged. Return centers for people obliged to leave are planned. Police are to be allowed to carry out deportations unannounced, detain people longer and search more extensively. The task force for deporting foreign criminals is to get more staff.

The CDU wants integration based on a "support and demand" principle, with concrete obligations written into state law. It sees language learning as the basic condition for participation and work.

Immigrants should have duties to integrate. This should be in state law. Recognized asylum seekers must learn German. Children take a language test before school.

The state reception law is to be amended. It calls for a commitment to the free democratic basic order and to German "Leitkultur" (guiding culture). All recognized asylum seekers are to attend mandatory German courses, and learning while working is to be allowed. Language tests are to be held before school entry, with mandatory extra lessons for major deficits.