Linke on migration and integration

The Left wants refugees to be allowed to work without restriction from their first day. They should live in apartments rather than group shelters and receive cash instead of in-kind benefits or payment cards. Municipalities should get more federal money for hosting them.

Refugees should be allowed to work right away. They should live in normal apartments. They should get money and not a payment card. The federal government should pay towns and cities for the costs.

The work permit would apply without limits from the day of arrival. Refugees would be housed in apartments spread across the country and offered free language courses everywhere. Instead of in-kind benefits and payment cards, the platform calls for cash payments at the level of the minimum income the party plans. A fund would support municipalities willing to take in refugees, and the money could also be used for general public services. The federal government would fully cover housing costs through a per-person flat rate.

The Left wants to dissolve the EU border agency Frontex and replace it with a civilian European sea rescue program. Pushbacks, meaning turning people away without a procedure, should stop. The party points to the thousands who die at Europe's borders each year.

Frontex is the EU's border agency. The Left wants to shut Frontex down. Instead, the EU should rescue people at sea. Nobody should simply be sent back at the border.

Existing tools for monitoring the Mediterranean and the external borders would be used for rescue. Private sea rescuers would no longer face prosecution. The platform calls pushbacks illegal. The party wants to cancel refugee deals with Turkey, with militias and with authoritarian governments.

The Left rejects all previous tightening of asylum law and the Common European Asylum System (GEAS/CEAS). Every person seeking protection should get an individual procedure with legal remedies, including at the EU's external borders. There should be no fast-track procedures or detention of people seeking protection.

The Left is against stricter asylum rules. It also rejects the EU's new asylum system. Every person should get their own asylum procedure. Nobody should be locked up for seeking asylum.

The party calls for uniform, high protection standards and rejects safe third country and safe country of origin rules. In Germany, welfare organizations and associations would provide independent advice to asylum seekers. Persecution based on sexual orientation or gender identity should be recognized in practice as grounds for asylum. The platform considers systematic internal border checks and turning people away there impermissible. It cites the European Court of Human Rights, the Geneva Refugee Convention and other treaties.

The Left wants safe and legal routes into the EU and would lift the visa requirement for people seeking protection. Climate impacts, environmental damage and poverty should also count as reasons for flight. Immigration law should no longer be based on origin or economic usefulness.

People fleeing should be able to reach the EU safely and legally. They should not need a visa for that. Poverty and climate damage should also count as reasons to flee. Places that take in refugees should get EU money.

The plan includes humanitarian visas and large admission quotas through the UN refugee agency's resettlement program. A European refugee levy would give EU funds to countries, regions and cities that take in more refugees and care for them well. The party wants broad visa liberalization and regards migration for social and economic reasons as legitimate too. It calls for improvements to family reunification. It rejects agreements with countries of origin and transit that serve to seal off Europe and ease deportations. In the party's view, legal routes take away smugglers' business.

The Left wants to give everyone who lives in Germany long-term the right to vote at all levels. After five years in the country, people would have a legal claim to citizenship regardless of income. People without secure residence status should be able to stay.

People who live in Germany for a long time should be allowed to vote. After five years, everyone should be able to become German. That should not depend on money. Children born here should be German right away.

Voting rights would include both voting and standing for election. All children born in Germany would receive citizenship. The party welcomes that multiple citizenship is now allowed but criticizes the income requirements. Undocumented people would get paths to legal status, and people living on repeated temporary toleration permits would get an effective right to stay. Residence and work permits would no longer be tied to an employer or length of employment, and foreign qualifications would be recognized faster.

The Left rejects deportations, especially to countries marked by war, persecution and misery. Deportation should also not be used as an additional punishment for offenders.

The Left is against deportations. Nobody should have to go back to a country with war or hardship. Offenders should not be deported either. They should get their punishment in Germany.

The platform describes deporting convicted people as a form of double punishment. Anyone who commits a crime should get a regular criminal trial in Germany regardless of residence status. Any prison sentence should also be served in Germany.