SPD on migration and integration

The SPD wants to keep funding integration structures and local engagement and to further develop the Saxon Participation and Integration Act. It says Saxony will continue to depend on immigration. Those without a permanent right to stay should leave, provided this is possible and humane.

The SPD wants to help people who are new in Saxony. There should be good services and local help. The integration law should be improved. People who may not stay should leave if that is possible and humane.

The structures to be supported include services in social affairs, education, and the economy, an administration geared to diversity, and democratic and civil society engagement, some of it by volunteers. The Participation and Integration Act is to be updated together with all stakeholders in Saxony because the SPD regards integration as a permanent task. For dealing with refugees, the platform names humanity and solidarity as the standard.

The SPD calls Saxony a state of immigration and wants to attract workers from abroad. Foreign qualifications are to be recognized faster, family reunification made easier for people in work, and immigration offices turned into welcome offices.

Saxony needs workers from other countries. The SPD wants to recruit them. Their degrees should be accepted faster. Their families should be able to join them more easily. The offices should decide quickly and help.

The platform calls for a welcoming culture and a clear stance against racism and discrimination. The options under the new immigration law are to be used in full. Immigration offices should decide quickly and help companies find staff. The Center for Securing Skilled Workers (ZEFAS) is to get a bigger role, and universities are to be supported in becoming more international. Recruitment is to focus above all on education, health and care, skilled trades, utilities and security.

The SPD wants to get refugees into work quickly so they can build a prospect of staying regardless of their residence status. The Chancen-Aufenthaltsrecht (opportunity residence permit) is to be implemented as well as possible by the authorities.

Refugees should be allowed to work quickly. People who work should have a chance to stay. Young refugees without a diploma should get into school or training fast. The offices should carry this out well.

Young refugees without a school diploma are to start school or vocational training as quickly as possible. The platform describes the opportunity residence permit as a change of track for well-integrated people. It applies to people who have lived in Germany for at least five years, affirm the democratic constitutional order and have not committed crimes. For foreigners with a prospect of staying, the SPD wants to create fast routes into the labor market.

The SPD wants to require authorities to always use their discretion in favor of granting work or training permits. Refugees should be able to stay as long as their job or training lasts, and targeted immigration of skilled workers is to be strengthened.

Refugees should find it easier to work or start job training. Offices should use every option to allow this. Anyone with a job or training place should be allowed to stay during that time. Saxony should also attract skilled workers from abroad.

Residence restrictions, tolerated-stay status and deportation are to be handled so that employees and trainees remain available to Saxony's labor market. Proven tools such as labor market mentors will continue, and the BABS advice center for foreign workers is to be strengthened. Companies are to get more advice on finding and integrating workers from abroad. The ZEFAS center for securing skilled labor is to play a larger part in targeted immigration to the regions. Foreign qualifications are to be recognized faster, through more staff in the authorities and modular procedures.

The SPD wants to make naturalization easier and faster and welcomes the reform of citizenship law. The Chancen-Aufenthaltsrecht (opportunity residence permit) is to be applied as fully as possible in Saxony, and the hardship commission is to be strengthened.

People from other countries should find it easier to become German citizens. The process should be faster. People who are well integrated should be allowed to stay in Saxony. The SPD wants to make good use of a new federal law for this. The commission for hardship cases should also be able to do more.

In the party's view, the citizenship reform also honors the life achievements of guest workers and of contract workers in the former GDR. People who work and pay taxes should not be deported. The opportunity residence permit gives people with tolerated status 18 months to meet the conditions for a permanent right to stay. The hardship commission can propose to the interior minister that someone stay for humanitarian or personal reasons; its work and its ability to take on cases are to be strengthened. Counseling for voluntary return will continue to receive funding.

The SPD wants children in initial reception centers to be able to attend regular daycare centers and schools. Stays in reception centers are to be as short as possible for children and teenagers, and language courses for parents are to come with childcare.

Refugee children first live in large shelters. There are hardly any lessons there. The SPD wants these children to go to normal daycare and schools. They should stay in these shelters only for a short time. Parents should be able to learn German while someone looks after their children.

According to the platform, reception centers offer only scattered learning opportunities even though children have a right to education. Children and teenagers are to get immediate access to education, youth welfare services and health care. For unaccompanied refugee minors, the SPD wants to equip youth welfare offices better. The “Heim-TÜV” inspection scheme for shelters is to be extended with criteria specific to children and teenagers. In addition to the federal integration courses, the state will keep offering its own language programs for asylum seekers.

The SPD wants to give refugees an electronic health card so they can see a doctor without a detour. At present, during their first months they need a voucher from the municipality before each treatment.

At first, refugees need a paper from a public office before they can see a doctor. The SPD wants to change that. Refugees should get a health card. With it they can go straight to the doctor.

Under current practice, refugees who fall ill early in their stay must first pick up a treatment voucher from the municipality. The card is meant to replace this step. Refugees could then visit a doctor's office the same way other patients do.

The SPD wants to fund municipalities reliably for their integration tasks and adjust the flat-rate payments. Municipal integration centers are to bundle services of the same standard in every county and independent city.

Integration happens in towns and cities. The SPD wants to give them secure money for it. Every county should have an integration center. The services should be equally good everywhere.

Saxony's Participation and Integration Act is to be developed further together with those involved. The “Integrative Maßnahmen” funding scheme, which supports intercultural dialogue, municipal integration work and language courses among other things, will continue. Networks of social, educational and business organizations, many run by volunteers, will receive political backing. The SPD welcomes the intercultural opening of companies and the public sector. Foreign-language support and intercultural training are to count regularly as workplace training and be eligible for funding.

The SPD wants humane asylum procedures that follow the rule of law and are completed faster. People who are already well integrated should be allowed to stay wherever possible. Those without a permanent right of residence should leave, provided this is feasible and humane.

The SPD wants fair asylum procedures. The procedures should be faster. Well-integrated people should be allowed to stay. People who may not stay should leave the country. This applies only if leaving is possible and humane.

The platform wants to create legal ways to stay and to say openly when there is a chance of a right to remain and when there is not. Local immigration offices should use their full discretion in favor of people who are already integrated. Procedures should keep getting shorter. The duty to leave for people without a permanent right of residence is tied to departure being actually possible and humanely acceptable.

The SPD wants Saxony to keep enough initial reception places for refugees and to coordinate their distribution among municipalities itself. Municipalities are to get incentives for taking people in and reliable funding for integration. Afghan local staff should also be admitted.

Saxony should have enough places for refugees. The state should manage how they are spread across towns. Towns should get money for integration. Saxony should also take in helpers from Afghanistan.

The state is to maintain sufficient initial reception capacity. The platform sees the state in a coordinating role when refugees are distributed. Municipalities are to receive incentives for taking people in and dependable funding for integration. The SPD calls the admission of Afghan local staff and their relatives a matter of decency and reliability that Saxony must not avoid.

The SPD wants to reorganize the immigration offices and speed up their procedures so that international skilled workers can come to Saxony more easily. It considers more immigration necessary for Saxony to remain a strong industrial state.

Saxony lacks skilled workers. So the SPD wants more skilled workers from abroad. The immigration offices should work faster. They should make people feel welcome.

The platform names red tape as one reason companies shy away from hiring people from non-EU countries. The offices are to guide skilled workers quickly through the required procedures. Immigrants are to be integrated faster. The skilled-worker alliance and the immigration pact are to continue, and the SPD calls for a welcoming culture.