SPD on migration and integration

The SPD wants to make it easier for skilled workers from abroad and for refugees to get into work. The Welcome Center is to receive more funding, foreign qualifications are to be recognized faster and language courses expanded.

Hamburg needs skilled workers. The SPD wants people from abroad to start working faster. Refugees should find work more easily too. There should be more language courses and faster recognition of degrees.

The Welcome Center combines job placement, the immigration office, language learning and training, and the SPD wants to invest more there. For refugees, barriers are to be lowered within Hamburg's powers and entry routes into jobs widened. Counseling on recognition of qualifications is to be developed further, and at the federal level the SPD wants simpler and faster recognition procedures. Recruitment is to happen on fair terms, so the Servicestelle Arbeitnehmerfreizügigkeit (advice center for mobile workers) will continue to be funded.

The SPD wants to expand targeted labor immigration while curbing unmanaged immigration. It backs swift implementation of the new EU asylum rules and affirms protection for the persecuted and for war refugees.

Hamburg needs workers from other countries. The SPD wants to bring in more of them in a targeted way. It wants to limit immigration that has no rules. It supports the EU's new asylum rules. Persecuted people should still get protection.

In the program's view, immigration needs rules and management so that the city's capacity to integrate people does not suffer. Among the new EU asylum rules, the SPD lists limits on unmanaged migration, working controls at the external borders and a fair distribution of asylum seekers across Europe. At the same time, the program stresses that Hamburg is unthinkable without immigration and welcomes people from all countries with respect.

The SPD wants to enforce the obligation to leave where there is no right to stay. The number of priority deportations of criminal offenders is to keep rising.

Some people are not allowed to stay in Germany. The SPD wants them to actually leave. Offenders with no right to stay should be deported first. An investigation team will get more staff for this.

The program notes that fewer arrivals were registered in 2024, while the number of returns is rising significantly. The joint investigation team GERAS, run by the state criminal police and the immigration authority, is to be reinforced. With this, the SPD wants to achieve more priority deportations of criminal offenders.

The SPD wants to create a state integration law that secures integration services permanently and makes them binding. Language support, humane housing for refugees and invitations to apply for citizenship are to continue.

The SPD wants an integration law for Hamburg. It should secure services for immigrants for the long term. Language-focused daycare centers should stay. People who can become German should get an invitation to apply.

The law is also to provide the legal basis for Hamburg's integration advisory board and the districts' integration councils. Refugees are to continue to be housed humanely across the whole city. With information campaigns and success stories, the SPD wants to counter the stigmatization of refugees. The Sprach-Kitas (language-focused daycare centers), which Hamburg has funded itself since federal funding ended, are to remain. Those who meet the requirements are to be invited to naturalize and receive their certificate at a ceremony in city hall.

The SPD wants to keep Europe open with a humane asylum system. In its view, this only works if burdens are shared fairly within the EU.

The SPD wants Europe to stay open. People who flee should be treated with dignity. EU countries should share the tasks fairly. This applies to money, housing, and help.

The platform names humanitarian, financial, and material burdens that are to be divided fairly among EU states. In the SPD's view, an open and tolerant Europe can only be defended on that condition. The demand is tied to the party's commitment to a united Europe.