SPD on migration and integration

The SPD wants to keep recruiting foreign skilled workers and trainees through a central service office. It also wants to keep funding a campaign for a welcoming culture in business, because the program sees right-wing extremism as a risk to the state as a business location.

The SPD wants to win skilled workers from other countries. One central office helps them and the companies. It helps with residence, diplomas and language. The SPD also wants newcomers to feel welcome.

The Fachkräfteservicezentrale (skilled worker service center) was set up with the chambers of commerce and handles recognition, recruitment and relocation statewide. It advises on residence law, recognition of qualifications, language support, integration and family reunification. The state government runs the welcome-culture campaign together with employer associations. The program argues that far-right attacks and xenophobic parties deter skilled workers.

The SPD commits to the immigration of trainees, workers and skilled professionals because the care sector still lacks staff. It wants to examine how foreign professional qualifications can be recognized faster.

There are not enough care workers. So the SPD wants to attract people from abroad. Their job qualifications should be recognized faster. This applies to medicine, care and administration.

Faster recognition is to apply to jobs in medicine, care and public administration. The SPD describes labor immigration as necessary. In health policy, it also wants to keep supporting the integration of health professionals from abroad.

The SPD wants to keep making public administration, education, the police and social services interculturally open and free of discrimination. Participation bodies for people with an immigration background are to be strengthened, and the party wants to counter hate online.

Public offices should treat everyone equally well. Staff should understand different cultures. This also applies to schools and the police. People with an immigrant background should have more say. The SPD wants to act against hate on the internet.

In the SPD's view, an immigration society needs a service-minded and interculturally competent administration. Migrant councils, youth bodies and advisory boards for people with an immigration background are to be strengthened. Against false information, the program relies on fact-based education. The party opposes every form of hostility directed at groups of people.

The SPD wants Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to grant protection and to enforce existing law consistently. Refugee children and teenagers should quickly get into daycare, schools, sports and culture, and families should move early from initial reception centers into municipalities.

The SPD wants to keep giving protection to refugees. Children should get into daycare and school quickly. Families should stay only briefly in the first shelter. The SPD expects everyone to follow the rules.

The platform describes integration as a shared task of state and society: rules should be followed and offers used, while language, education and work should not fail because of where someone lives, their origin or money. Neighborhoods that take on much of the integration work should not be overburdened; the goal is mixed neighborhoods. The office of the integration commissioner is to be kept. Through the federal Startchancen program, integration specialists at priority schools are to support children, parents and teachers.

The SPD wants to expand language support and interpreting and to keep and extend counseling services for immigrants. The platform sees language as a precondition for participation.

The SPD wants more help with learning German. Daycare centers, schools and offices should have more interpreters. Counseling for immigrants should stay and grow. Volunteers should also get support.

Fixed budgets are to be available for translations. Existing counseling services are to be kept, digitized and expanded in a targeted way. State programs for counseling and support are to receive sufficient funding, and the integration fund will continue with clear priorities. Volunteers in integration work are to get better conditions.

The SPD wants to ease immigrants' path into work, including by allowing a switch from the asylum system to labor migration and by recognizing qualifications faster. The platform justifies this with the need for workers and skilled staff and with relief for public budgets.

The SPD wants immigrants to be able to work sooner. Degrees from abroad should be recognized faster. Women in particular should get help. The SPD says the state needs more workers.

Counseling services such as the IQ network are to be strengthened, and companies are to be supported in integrating employees with an immigrant background. The SPD will examine how existing structures can be coordinated more bindingly and procedures shortened. At the federal level, it wants to keep pushing for early access to work and to keep an eye on obstacles in administration and practice. Sectors with demand named in the platform include care, skilled trades, tourism and the public sector.

The SPD wants to push at the federal level for a new voluntary year that combines language support with social engagement and practical experience. It is to be open to young people with and without an immigrant background and to foster encounters.

The SPD wants a new voluntary year for young people. They learn German and help in social institutions. Young people with and without an immigrant background can join. Nobody has to take part.

The model is the Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr (voluntary social year). The plan includes intensive language support, social engagement, practical experience in companies and placements in public institutions. In addition, the Federal Volunteer Service and the voluntary social year are to be opened up for supporting immigrants. All offers are to be voluntary, well supervised and fairly designed.