CDU on migration and integration

The CDU wants to bring qualified workers from abroad to Hesse faster and create a "fast lane" for them. Procedures for skilled workers are to be separated from those for people seeking protection and streamlined overall.

Hesse needs more skilled workers. The CDU wants to bring skilled workers from abroad faster. Their applications should run separately from asylum cases. Foreign degrees should be recognized faster. There should be more visas for skilled workers.

The plans include a separate unit for foreign students in the immigration office and support for a new federal immigration agency ("Work-and-Stay-Agentur") that recruits skilled workers abroad. An overall concept is meant to shorten the process from the embassy to the local authority. Recognition of qualifications, advice and training are to be handled in one place. The CDU wants more skilled-worker visas and, as far as federal law allows, an automatic permanent work permit for foreign graduates of German universities. The Welcome Center and the integration guides are to be expanded.

The CDU follows the principle of "support and demand" and wants to write integration duties explicitly into the Hessian Integration Act. German courses and courses on civics and basic values are to be mandatory; at the same time, support programs are to continue and expand.

The CDU wants to put duties for people with a migration background into law. They should learn German. They should take courses about the country and its values. These courses should be required. The state should keep supporting integration.

The planned duties include becoming familiar with the rule of law, equal rights, tolerance and freedom of opinion and religion, and being open toward differing values and sexual ways of life. Also required are knowledge of the language, legal system, culture and history, the use of integration services and an explicit commitment to fighting antisemitism. Classes on the rule of law are to be offered in every county. Language support in daycare centers, intensive classes, the "InteA" program, the WIR program and labor-market programs such as "Wirtschaft integriert" are to continue. An integration commissioner is to serve as a central point of contact, and municipalities are to receive financial and organizational help. The CDU wants people with a long-term right to stay to be distributed quickly among municipalities across the state.

The CDU rejects general dual citizenship because, in its view, civic loyalty should not be divided. It also rejects the plans of the federal "traffic light" coalition for shorter residence periods and lower requirements for naturalization.

The CDU does not want dual citizenship for everyone. It says a person should belong to only one state. The federal government wants to make naturalization easier. The CDU is against that. Naturalization should come only after successful integration.

According to the platform, naturalization comes at the end of successful integration and requires a commitment to the free democratic basic order. There must be no doubt about applicants' integration and respect for the law; command of the language and lived values are required. The CDU stands by the cross-party compromise on citizenship law reached in the early 2000s. Statewide naturalization ceremonies are meant to underline the value of citizenship.

The CDU commits to protecting people in need but wants to manage and limit immigration to avoid overburdening the state and society. It backs mandatory asylum procedures at the EU's external borders and wants to consistently enforce the obligation to leave for people with no right to stay.

The CDU wants to protect people in need. But fewer people should come to Germany. Asylum claims should be checked at Europe's borders. People who may not stay should leave the country. The CDU says towns are overwhelmed otherwise.

The platform calls a common European migration policy and protection of the external borders decisive. The CDU supports the European Commission's proposals for mandatory border procedures, including for people rescued at sea. Those arriving from a safe country of origin or safe third country should ideally not enter at all, or should go through a procedure that already examines whether the claim is admissible. In the party's view, emergency shelters in community centers and gyms must not become permanent. People with a recognized need for protection are to be housed well and integrated. The state government is to get a dedicated state secretary for migration.

The CDU wants EU law to explicitly regulate turning people back at the external borders and calls for a reform of the Common European Asylum System and the Schengen rules. Public funding for private sea rescue should end. In the platform's view, open internal borders depend on secure external ones.

The CDU wants better protection for the EU's outer borders. EU law should say when people can be turned back there. Private sea rescue groups should no longer get state money. The EU's asylum rules should also change.

Hesse would support the states on the external border and the border agency Frontex within established procedures. The EU Commission is to carry over into refugee law a 2022 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that found such returns can be lawful. The CDU accepts burden-sharing within the EU only with balanced rules and obligations that can be enforced in court against member states. Onward movement within the EU is to be stopped, at the latest at the German border. The Dublin rules are to be strictly applied.

The CDU wants reception, asylum and court procedures to run quickly and under the rule of law. Anyone who deceives about their identity or fails to cooperate should be denied any further right to stay. Protection from deportation during a petition would be capped at three months.

The CDU wants faster asylum procedures. People who show a passport should get a quick decision. People who lie about who they are should not be allowed to stay. A petition should block deportation for 3 months at most. A petition is a request to the state parliament.

Refugees with passport documents should be able to go through a fast procedure. According to the platform, anyone who gives false or no information or does not cooperate is obviously not in need of protection. All means permitted under the rule of law are to be used to establish identity. Hesse's petitions law is to be reviewed.

The CDU wants to strengthen counties and municipalities with money and staff for receiving refugees, because the platform says they are reaching their limits. In providing for refugees, benefits in kind should take priority over cash.

Many towns and counties struggle to take in refugees. The CDU wants to give them more money and staff. Refugees should get goods rather than cash. People who help refugees should get support.

The platform says refugees have a right to good and sufficient provision. The priority for benefits in kind is to apply as far as law and practice allow. The CDU wants to keep supporting volunteers and professionals working in refugee aid, housing and care.

The CDU wants to set up state-run shelters where people stay until their residence status is settled. Only those with a residence permit would be assigned to municipalities. The initial reception center in Giessen would take on more responsibilities and a central office for unaccompanied minors.

The CDU wants to set up shelters run by the state. People stay there until it is clear if they may remain. Only people with a residence permit move to towns. Deportations happen straight from these shelters. Giessen would get an office for young people without parents.

Deportations and returns are to take place directly from the state facilities. Anyone who demonstrably refuses to integrate or commits serious crimes would be moved back there. According to the platform, the state reception center in Giessen has proven itself as an arrival, decision and return center and should bundle additional tasks. A statewide contact point for unaccompanied foreign minors would handle taking them into care and determining their age there, by medical examination in cases of doubt.

The CDU wants people who are legally required to leave to actually depart, and plans to expand deportation detention and pre-departure custody. More states are to be classed as safe countries of origin. The platform justifies this with capacity for those in need of protection and public acceptance.

People who must leave should really leave the country. The CDU wants more places for deportation detention. Leaving by choice comes before force. Criminals should leave especially fast. More countries should count as safe.

Voluntary return is to come before forced deportation. The share of people actually brought to return measures is to rise significantly. For asylum claims rejected as manifestly unfounded, the duty to obtain replacement papers would begin with the federal office's decision. Returning criminals, repeat offenders and persons deemed dangerous has priority and runs through the working groups GAI and BasA. In the Bundesrat, the CDU wants Georgia, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia classed as safe countries of origin; the same would apply to all states with a recognition rate below 5 percent.

The CDU wants to press the federal government for a different course on refugee policy. It rejects the Chancen-Aufenthaltsrecht (opportunity residence right) for people long tolerated and the switch from the asylum track to work-based residence, arguing that both create incentives for unauthorized entry.

The CDU opposes the federal government's refugee policy. It rejects new rights to stay for tolerated people. It says this draws more people into the country without permission. The federal government should deport faster.

According to the platform, federal policy overburdens the housing market, the welfare and education systems and municipalities. The CDU views the one-year residence permit for long-tolerated people as legalizing an unlawful stay. It also opposes establishing identity by sworn declaration when documents are missing. It expects the federal government to carry out its announced return offensive at once, especially for criminals and persons deemed dangerous.

The CDU wants to keep supporting expellees and Spätaussiedler (ethnic German resettlers), citing their contribution to rebuilding the country. Hesse is to keep taking in resettlers, and at the federal level the party wants to push for better pension rules and a fairer hardship fund.

Spätaussiedler are ethnic Germans who move to Germany from Eastern Europe. The CDU wants Hesse to keep taking them in. They should get better pensions. The CDU wants to push for this at the federal level. The state offices for expellees should stay.

Anyone who meets the requirements is to be admitted to Hesse as a resettler. The state is to fund integration measures, language support and cultural work such as local heritage museums. At the federal level, the CDU wants an improved Fremdrentengesetz, the law governing pension claims of resettlers, and a fairer design of the hardship fund. The post of state commissioner, the state advisory council, the state parliament's subcommittee and the Hessian prize “Flucht, Vertreibung, Eingliederung” are all guaranteed to continue.

The CDU wants to expand the Hasselroth facility into housing and an education and community center for Spätaussiedler (ethnic German resettlers). Because the party sees resettlers as German citizens rather than migrants, they are to be housed separately.

The CDU wants to expand the facility in Hasselroth. Young resettlers and families should live there. There should be language classes and career advice. The CDU says resettlers are Germans. So they should be housed apart from other newcomers.

The Hasselroth site is to offer language courses for all age groups, vocational training and further education, and training and career counseling for young newcomers. More broadly, the CDU wants to keep funding professional and social integration, especially in temporary housing, and offer job-related language courses. Teaching of basic values and the constitutional order is also to be stepped up there. The program justifies separate housing by saying that resettlers hold all the rights and duties of German citizens once they receive their admission notice.

The CDU acknowledges the contributions of Muslims to Hesse and wants to integrate Muslim culture and ways of life more closely into society. The Dialog-Forum Islam is to become permanent, and mosque communities are to be supported in pastoral care, social work and integration.

The CDU wants to keep talking with Muslim communities. The Islam dialogue forum should become permanent. Mosques should open up to their neighbors, for example with festivals. The CDU wants to support this.

According to the program, the Dialog-Forum Islam has given cooperation with Muslim religious communities and associations a fixed structure and is to be made permanent. The CDU seeks dialogue with mosque communities and wants to support their pastoral and social work in municipalities. Mosques are to step up efforts to integrate their members into society. Projects through which mosques open up and engage with municipalities receive special support.