Grüne on migration and integration

The Greens want to speed up and simplify labor immigration. Work visas could be applied for online through a single office, and foreign vocational qualifications would be recognized more easily. Refugees would also find it easier to take up work.

The Greens want more skilled workers to come from abroad. They could apply for their visa online. Degrees from other countries would be accepted more easily. Refugees would also be able to work more easily.

A digital immigration agency would modernize the process. Dealing with public offices in English would become possible more often. For recognizing qualifications, the plan includes a central office, more staff and practice-based forms of proof. Recruitment should avoid draining too much talent from countries of origin. Barriers to work for refugees would be reduced further because, in the platform's view, work speeds up integration; employment and further training should be easy to combine.

The Greens want a federal participation act and a participation council to improve the inclusion of people with a migration background. Public agencies are to open up interculturally in staffing and structure so that state institutions reflect society's diversity.

Many people in Germany have roots in other countries. The Greens want them to have more say. A new law and a council should help with this. More different kinds of people should work in government offices. Nobody should be treated unfairly in hiring.

Binding measures are to ensure that social diversity is reflected in institutions. The intercultural opening of public agencies is to be promoted strategically and given a legal basis. Hiring and promotion are to be designed so that discrimination is avoided.

The Greens want to give victims of human trafficking a secure right to stay, even if they do not testify in criminal proceedings. Women who suffer violence and whose residence depends on their partner are to be able to get a residence permit of their own.

Some people are taken away and exploited. This is called human trafficking. The victims should be allowed to stay safely in Germany. They do not have to testify in court for this. Some women may only stay because of their husband. If there is violence, they should get their own right to stay.

Police and courts are to cooperate more closely across borders to uncover networks of human trafficking and forced prostitution. The approach is to put the rights and support of those affected first, and the national action plan is to be developed further. Affected women are to get access to counseling and help. When a residence permit is renewed, it is to be considered case by case that pregnant women, single mothers, and women caring for relatives can work less.

The Greens want to keep the reformed citizenship law and ease access to naturalization for additional groups. The party rejects revoking German citizenship, pointing to the Basic Law.

The Greens want to keep the new citizenship law. Single parents and people with disabilities should also become German more easily. No one should lose their German passport again. People with two passports should have equal rights.

Single parents, family caregivers and people with disabilities or serious illness should be able to naturalize on equal terms and without much red tape. Holding multiple citizenships should not lead to unjustified unequal treatment. A legally sound procedure would be created to determine the status of stateless people and their children.

The Greens want to treat refugee protection and labor migration as fundamentally separate, while shaping the option to switch from the asylum track to a work-based residence. The party regards the Chancenaufenthaltsrecht (opportunity residence right) as a model for further reforms. An expert body is to advise on migration policy.

Some people come as refugees. Others come to work. The Greens want to allow a switch between the two paths. This is called a change of track. Well-integrated people should be able to stay. Experts should advise the government.

According to the program, labor migration follows demand for workers, while admitting people seeking protection follows humanitarian obligations. Integration is to be funded reliably. The advisory body would include experts from academia, research and local practice as well as affected people. The party expects newcomers to be willing to get involved.

The Greens want to give cities and counties more, and more reliable, funding for receiving refugees. This includes language and integration courses right after arrival, more counseling, and a preference for decentralized housing.

Many towns struggle to take in refugees well. The Greens want to give them more money. Refugees should be able to start German classes right away. There should also be more advice services.

The platform calls for fully funded integration and language courses that are open immediately after arrival, plus digital learning options from day one. Barriers to learning German are to be lowered, especially for parents and mothers. Migration counseling centers and youth migration services are to be strengthened. Refugees should preferably live in decentralized housing and be allowed to move out of shelters. For unaccompanied minors, the Greens reject lower standards and call for quick access to school and psychosocial support.

The Greens want tools like the payment card for asylum seekers to cut red tape and not get in the way of integration. Benefits must not fall below the constitutionally protected subsistence minimum, and everyone should have easy access to health care.

Refugees often get their money on a payment card. The Greens want this card not to make life harder. No one should get less than the basics needed to live. Everyone should be able to see a doctor easily.

The platform points to Hannover as a model, where the card was introduced without what the party sees as an inappropriate cap on cash. Cuts below the subsistence minimum are to be ruled out at all times. Access to medical care is to be possible for everyone without bureaucratic hurdles.

The Greens want to scrap existing work bans for refugees and speed up procedures. Work permits would count as granted after a short deadline unless the immigration office objects. The platform sees language and work as the main driver of integration.

Some refugees are not allowed to work today. The Greens want to end these bans. If the office does not say no quickly, the permit counts as given. Foreign degrees should be easier to get recognized.

Where an employer and a refugee agree, the platform says the state should not slow things down with avoidable paperwork; this is also meant to relieve employers and give planning certainty. Early counseling and a skills check are meant to help people use their qualifications. The aim is regular employment rather than precarious work. Recognition of foreign degrees and qualifications is to be simplified.

The Greens want to keep the individual right to asylum and Germany's protection duties under international law. They reject tightening measures that in their view only burden people seeking protection and hinder integration, and they favor fast and fair procedures.

Germany has a right to asylum. The Greens want to keep this right. They are against stricter asylum rules. Procedures should be fast and fair.

The party commits to the Geneva Refugee Convention, subsidiary protection, the European Convention on Human Rights and church asylum. Swift procedures are meant to give clarity to those affected and to municipalities. Whether a country counts as a safe country of origin or safe third country should be decided only by parliament, based on fundamental and human rights criteria. Instead of political designations of this kind, the platform wants legally sound procedures.

The Greens want to keep allowing family members to join refugees in Germany and remove existing restrictions. The platform argues that parents and children need each other, including for integration.

Refugees should be able to bring their family to Germany. The Greens want to remove the limits on this. Procedures should be faster. Relatives should no longer need a German test before they enter.

Reunification procedures are to be sped up. The party wants to drop language certificates required before entry when families are brought together. The platform treats family as a precondition for settling in Germany.

Under the platform, anyone who has no right to stay after review and all appeals should leave quickly, with voluntary return taking priority. The Greens rule out deportations to war and crisis zones, while serious offenders who are required to leave should be returned first.

Not everyone can stay in Germany. People with no right to stay should leave quickly. Leaving by choice is best. No one should be sent to a country at war. Serious criminals should be sent back first.

According to the platform, the duty to leave applies only after an individual review, exhausted appeals and when nothing legally bars deportation. Deportations should not happen where human rights or international law stand in the way. The party does not want return agreements with regimes like the Taliban, so as not to lend them political legitimacy. People who committed serious crimes should be returned as a priority once they have served their sentences.

The Greens want a common European migration policy in which people seeking protection are distributed among member states on a binding basis. The EU asylum reform (GEAS/CEAS) is to be implemented in Germany in line with fundamental and human rights, without additional limits on asylum.

European countries should share refugees fairly. This should be a duty for all. The EU's new asylum rules should respect human rights. No one should be pushed back unlawfully at the outer borders.

The party calls for effective human rights monitoring and action against illegal pushbacks at the external borders. Fundamental rights monitoring in Germany is to be set out in law, with the national human rights institution funded accordingly. Reception conditions are to be raised across Europe so people do not move on because of poverty or homelessness. No one should be detained merely for applying for asylum, and the platform regards detention of children as generally incompatible with the child's best interests.

The Greens oppose moving asylum procedures to countries outside the EU. Applications from people who arrive in the EU should be examined on their merits there. In the party's view, such schemes cost a lot of money and fail in court.

Some want asylum claims checked in countries outside Europe. The Greens are against this. People who arrive in the EU should get a procedure here. Every case should be checked one by one.

According to the platform, the right to an individual review and the ban on returning people to danger apply without exception. The party also opposes states such as Russia and Belarus using people seeking protection as leverage, while wanting to preserve the individual right to asylum. People fleeing military service, for example from Russia, should receive protection in line with European Court of Justice case law.

The Greens want more agreements with countries of origin and transit that open legal routes for training, study and work. In return, partner countries would take back their own nationals who have no right to stay. The platform argues that more regulated migration reduces irregular migration.

Germany should make deals with other countries. People from there can then come legally to work or learn. In return, these countries take back people who may not stay. This should mean fewer dangerous journeys.

The plan includes visa agreements and training partnerships for students, trainees and skilled workers. The agreements are to respect human rights and also improve living conditions in partner countries. International cooperation should not be shaped by migration policy interests alone. The party wants to foster ties between diaspora communities in Germany and their societies of origin.

The Greens call for a European, state-coordinated sea rescue effort in the Mediterranean and want to keep funding civilian rescue groups until then. Humanitarian admission programs are to open safe routes to Germany for people at particular risk.

Many refugees drown in the Mediterranean. The Greens want European states to organize rescue together. Until then, private rescuers should get money. People in great danger should be able to enter safely.

The party opposes punishing sea rescue and humanitarian aid and wants to rule this out clearly in law. Humanitarian admission and resettlement programs are to be supported at state level as well. For Afghan local staff and threatened women's and human rights defenders who fled to neighboring countries, humanitarian visas should be issued without much red tape. According to the platform, safe routes protect lives and take business away from smugglers.

The Greens call on the state interior ministers to stop all deportations to Iran and all deportations of Yazidis nationwide. The program justifies this with the situation of women's rights in Iran and the suffering Yazidis experienced at the hands of ISIS.

The Greens want Germany to stop deporting people to Iran. Yazidis should not be deported either. Yazidis are a religious group. The terror group ISIS persecuted them. The German states should decide this together.

The halt on deportations is to be decided by the states and apply nationwide. The program wants to keep protecting Yazidis after their persecution and displacement by ISIS. On Afghanistan, the program states that the Taliban government cannot return to the international community as long as it fails to meet its human rights obligations. Women and marginalized groups in Afghanistan are to receive continued support.