Grüne on migration and integration

The Greens want to create more suitable accommodation places for refugee minors who arrive without family. This is meant to secure care, integration and education.

Some children and teenagers flee to Hamburg without parents. The Greens want to create more good places for them. There they should be cared for and able to learn. Every young person should get a chance.

The platform singles out unaccompanied minor refugees as a group deserving special attention. More places tailored to their needs are meant to allow regular care. The party argues that every young person, regardless of origin, deserves good education and a prospect for the future.

The Greens want to give skilled workers from abroad fast and fair access to Hamburg's labor market. Foreign qualifications are to be recognized more easily, language and integration courses expanded, and companies supported in bringing newcomers on board.

Hamburg needs skilled workers from other countries. The Greens want to make their start easier. Foreign degrees should be accepted faster. There should be more language courses. Companies get help when they hire newcomers.

The party supports federal efforts to increase skilled immigration. Certain qualifications and language skills could be acquired only after arrival, and the recognition procedures of the federal states are to become simpler and more uniform. Language courses are to be expanded, explicitly also for people starting their careers and for young people, as are English-language degree programs. All immigrants should be able to attend an integration course quickly. Businesses that integrate people with foreign training or refugees would get less paperwork and better funding; recruitment abroad is to be fair.

The Greens want to strengthen the training of imams in Germany and expand Hamburg's qualification programs. This is meant to make Muslim congregations less dependent on their countries of origin. Religious communities are also to get help finding premises.

Imams lead prayers in the mosque. The Greens want to train more imams in Germany. They can be men or women. Then congregations need less help from other countries. Religions should also find rooms for prayer more easily.

According to the platform, training in Germany promotes intercultural understanding and integration; it is to be open to men and women alike. The party regards mosques, cem houses, temples and other houses of prayer as places of peace in principle and as an enrichment for the city. Burial options for religious and non-religious people are also to be expanded.

The Greens want to spread refugees more evenly across the city to maintain public acceptance of new shelters. Shelters are to be humane and meet higher standards. Priority is to go to the “Housing First” approach, under which people are first placed in a home of their own.

Many refugees in Hamburg live in shelters. The Greens want to spread them fairly across the city. Shelters should be good and safe. Refugees should get their own apartment as fast as possible.

Site planning is to take into account the social index of nearby schools (KESS factor). New shelters are to be built where possible under the “In Zukunft Wohnen” concept so that units can soon be rented to residents under regular leases. Purchases by the city-owned provider Fördern & Wohnen are to be stepped up, including specifically for large families. Every shelter is to have plans for protection against violence and for child protection. People with impairments are to be registered on arrival in a way that lets them be assigned a suitable place.

The Greens want more opportunities for children and adults to learn German, which they see as the key to settling in. Integration courses are to be offered more often with childcare, and course instructors are to be paid better. More interpreters are also to be made available.

People who come to Hamburg should be able to learn German well. The Greens want more language courses. There should be childcare during the courses. Children should learn German in daycare already. Course teachers should get better pay.

Children's language testing is to happen earlier, and every daycare center is to provide language support under a uniform, inclusive standard; centers with many multilingual children are to get extra staff. A continuing-education law modeled on Berlin's is meant to allow collectively agreed pay for instructors who, according to the platform, currently work as freelancers under precarious conditions. Video and phone interpreting is to be examined for the entire public sector, and interpreting in health care is to be enshrined in law. The state language program is to be used to add course places. The platform expects new arrivals to make use of these offers.

The Greens want to set up a central office that recruits and coordinates volunteers so that every refugee gets a mentor or a trained integration guide. Public administration is to become more accessible through plain language, multilingual forms and digital procedures. The aim is faster access to authorities, work and language courses.

Refugees should get help from the start. Each person should have a mentor or guide. A new office finds and coordinates the volunteers. Forms from public offices should be easier to understand. They should come in several languages.

The coordination office is to work with existing refugee initiatives. Integration guides receive special training, and volunteers get more courses and advice; according to the platform, this should also relieve the authorities. All new arrivals are to get a Hamburg version of the integration app “Integreat,” which gives information on key services in several languages. The Greens also fund intercultural training for refugees, employers and employees.

The Greens want to encourage immigration of skilled and other workers at various qualification levels and streamline procedures in government offices. According to the platform, slow processes block access to work and participation for too long. Volunteer and professional integration guides are to support new arrivals from the start.

The Greens want more workers from abroad to come to Hamburg. Government offices should work faster and more simply. Then people can find a job sooner. Helpers should guide new arrivals in the city.

The platform wants to ease benefit approvals, transfers between benefit systems, and recognition of foreign vocational qualifications. It criticizes that repeated in-person appointments for short-term papers and notices drag procedures out. Communication between agencies is to be simplified, which is also meant to relieve staff. Training for integration guides is to be funded, and volunteers are to get better support through existing refugee initiatives. Multilingual apps are to be developed further, job-market counseling expanded, and on-the-job coaching used.

The Greens want Hamburg to appoint a commissioner for migration, integration, and participation. This person is to advise government agencies on coordination and serve as a public point of contact. In addition, cross-agency coordination of refugee-related tasks is to be firmly established again.

The Greens want one fixed person for the topic of integration. This person advises the government offices. People affected can turn to this person. The offices should also work together better.

The platform points to the existing staff unit in the social affairs department and considers institutionalized cross-agency coordination of housing, integration, and participation to be useful once more. Together with the Integration Advisory Council, it wants to examine where this coordination should be located and what powers it should have. The new commissioner is also meant to provide impetus for civil society. Migrant self-organizations and the Integration Advisory Council are to be strengthened further.

The Greens want to actively promote the new naturalization options created by the citizenship law reform and digitize the procedure. Hamburg authorities are to use their discretion in favor of applicants.

The Greens want more people to get a German passport. The city should advertise this. People should be able to apply online. In unclear cases, offices should decide in favor of the people.

A Hamburg naturalization campaign is planned. People who meet the requirements based on their length of residence are to continue receiving automatic letters and personal contact. Digitization is meant to allow more cases to be handled in the same time. Because easier rules for people with disabilities, single parents, people with small pensions, and people unemployed through no fault of their own were not achieved at the federal level, a guideline is to instruct case workers to grant residence rights and citizenship wherever legally possible.

The Greens want independent observation of deportations to cover the entire process, including outside Hamburg. So far, monitoring exists at Hamburg Airport but not when people are picked up from the detention facility in Glückstadt.

In Hamburg, an independent office watches deportations at the airport. The Greens want to extend this. It should start when people are picked up from detention. That detention center is in Schleswig-Holstein.

The platform calls deportation the harshest tool in immigration law. The city funds the monitoring post, which is staffed independently. According to its reports, pickups from the Glückstadt detention facility often lead to critical situations, so that deportations fail or are called off. Monitoring is meant to safeguard human rights and make government action transparent.

The Greens want to expand health care for people without papers and continue supporting the clearing office. Victims of violence without a residence permit are to have an anonymous contact point that offers shelter.

Some people in Hamburg live without valid papers. The Greens want to help them better when they are sick. Victims of violence should get help and shelter without giving their name. They do not have to report to the authorities right away.

Hamburg already lets undocumented children attend daycare and school and runs a health care fund and a clearing office that examines paths to legal status. The platform criticizes that psychotherapy and treatment of chronic illness are not yet covered this way. Medical walk-in services are to get more secure backing. The planned contact point for victims of violence is to offer protection without requiring people to disclose their residence status immediately.

The Greens want to create Hamburg's own admission program for people from Afghanistan. It is meant to speed up what they see as slow admissions under the federal program, since the situation under the Taliban remains dangerous.

The Greens want Hamburg to have its own program for people from Afghanistan. People in danger should be able to enter more easily. The Greens think the federal program is too slow. Afghanistan is still dangerous.

The model is the existing state admission program for people from Syria. Entry and admission are to be made easier above all for people seeking protection who can show they are under threat at home. The platform justifies this with the Taliban's takeover of power.

The Greens advocate a European migration policy that guarantees access to asylum and fair, individual procedures. They condemn pushbacks at the external borders and want Hamburg to sponsor a civilian rescue ship through donations.

The Greens want Europe to protect the right to asylum. Every person who flees should get a fair process. No one should be pushed back at the border against the law. Hamburg should support a rescue ship with donations.

The platform calls for a European border protection system based on the rule of law and under effective control of the European Parliament. It says Frontex has not met these standards so far and therefore backs a European debate on institutional changes. Safe escape routes through quotas and fair distribution are planned. Hamburg is to influence relevant EU legislation early on. The sponsorship is meant to give practical substance to the city's membership in the "Safe Harbors" alliance.