CDU on migration and integration

The CDU wants to manage and limit immigration and considers Hamburg's capacity for housing, schools and integration to be exceeded. Shelters are to be spread across the city in a socially balanced way and planned with public participation.

The CDU wants less immigration to Hamburg. It says the city has too little room in shelters and schools. Shelters should be spread evenly across the city. Local people should have a say.

According to the platform, Hamburg should keep taking in people entitled to protection, while the CDU regards the city's means as limited. At the federal level it backs what it calls a turnaround in asylum and security policy, and at the state level it wants to take all steps that limit immigration and simplify rejections at the border and returns. The immigration offices are to be better equipped so that asylum procedures and skilled-worker immigration procedures move faster.

The CDU wants to sharply reduce financial incentives for coming to Germany. In Hamburg it relies on a payment card and a work requirement for asylum seekers, and at the federal level on stricter rules for naturalization and dual citizenship. In its view, strong incentives draw especially many asylum seekers to Germany.

The CDU wants fewer asylum seekers to come to Germany. Refugees should get a payment card instead of cash. Asylum seekers in Hamburg should have to work. People who must leave the country should get no more money from the state.

The payment card is to apply in initial reception centers as well as in refugees' own accommodation. The CDU wants to use every available leeway to lower asylum seeker benefits. People required to leave the country are to receive no social benefits at all. At the federal level, the party wants to end the faster naturalization introduced by the previous coalition and make dual citizenship the exception again. It bases the work requirement on law already in force.

The CDU wants more and faster deportations, including to Syria and Afghanistan for criminals and people classified as potential attackers. Anyone with protection status who travels to their country of origin for a vacation should lose that status automatically and be barred from re-entering.

The CDU wants to deport more people who are not allowed to stay. This should happen faster. Criminals should also be sent back to Syria and Afghanistan. Refugees who vacation in their home country should lose their protection.

People who repeatedly evade deportation are to be placed in pre-deportation custody. The immigration offices get more staff and technology and are to work more closely with the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. Administrative courts are to be equipped so they can rule quickly. The CDU wants prisoners with an expulsion order deported straight from prison; for this, the office is to decide well before release and obtain any missing documents.

The CDU advocates stationary checks at Germany's borders until, in its view, the EU's external borders are adequately protected. Anyone arriving from an EU country or a safe third country is to be turned back at the border.

The CDU wants fixed checks at Germany's borders. They should stay until the EU's outer borders are secure. People coming from another EU country should not get asylum in Germany. Police should turn these people back at the border.

The platform points to the checks during the European soccer championship, which the CDU considers to have worked. The party argues that people entering from EU member states or safe third countries no longer face persecution there and so have no claim to asylum in Germany. They are therefore to be refused entry. According to the platform, national checks are needed as long as migration routes to Europe remain open.

The CDU wants to press the federal government to make it easier for skilled workers to come to Germany; credential recognition and visa procedures should be completed within one working week. At the same time, this immigration should stay separate from the asylum system, and counseling for people returning home should grow substantially.

Hamburg does not have enough workers. The CDU wants skilled workers from abroad to come more easily. Visas and recognition of job training should be done in one week. This should stay separate from asylum. People who want to go back to their home country should get more advice.

In the CDU's view, immigration should follow demand and be orderly. Skilled workers should get more support when moving to Germany. The city, together with business, chambers and migrant associations, should do more to win immigrants as successors for companies, especially in the trades. The program justifies return counseling and support by saying that economic activity in countries of origin can reduce causes of flight and create business ties.

The CDU wants to reissue Hamburg's integration plan with measurable goals and clear responsibility for government, business and civil society. It sees integration as a task that demands effort from both immigrants and the host society.

The CDU wants to make a new plan for integration. Integration means that immigrants become part of society. The plan should have goals that can be measured. Government, companies and associations should share responsibility.

The focus areas are education and training, work, housing and neighborhood development. The Integration Advisory Council is to be strengthened; there, immigrant representatives consult with politics, public agencies, business and civil society. Campaigns are meant to attract people with a migration background to public service, without fixed quotas and without bypassing merit-based selection. The CDU wants to give targeted support to cultural projects and sports clubs that contribute to integration. The basis is to be the free democratic constitutional order and interreligious dialogue.

The CDU sees German language skills and integration into work as the most important conditions for successful integration. The state is to support both but also make them mandatory.

Immigrants should learn German and work. The CDU wants to help with that. But it also wants to make it a duty. Young people without a work permit should get community service tasks.

Besides more language courses, easy-access practice formats in public libraries, community centers and senior meeting places are to be funded. Language mediators and translators are to help in dealings with public agencies and in health care. Training measures are meant to provide the skills needed for the German labor market. For young people without a work permit, the program calls for mandatory community service work that structures the day, teaches language and, in the CDU's view, protects against the influence of extremists.

The CDU wants to push at the federal level to undo the recent reform of citizenship law and rejects fast-track naturalization. It sees naturalization as a possible final step of successful integration.

The federal government changed the rules for getting a German passport. The CDU thinks this was wrong and wants to undo the change. It rejects very fast naturalization. Ceremonies for new citizens at city hall should continue.

The program calls the reform misguided; so-called express naturalizations are not to happen with the CDU. By contrast, the campaign inviting immigrants who have lived in Hamburg for a long time to become citizens is to continue. The party also wants to keep the naturalization ceremonies at city hall.