Immigrant group
By dividing immigrants into groups of immigrants , migrant flows are subdivided. As a rule, the respective immigrant group is categorized with the aid of the legal principles of the respective destination country.
Federal Republic of Germany
According to German law, the reasons for immigration determine the right of residence . The 1999 Migration Report of the Federal Government's Commissioner for Foreigners for Foreigners Issues distinguishes between the following reasons for immigration:
EU internal migration
Due to the increasing freedom of movement within the borders of the EU , more generous entry conditions apply to people from the Member States than to people from other countries. Most of the immigrants in this fairly constant group of 150,000 to 205,000 people a year come from Italy. The number of emigrants between 100,000 and 160,000 people is just as stable. Immigration and emigration within the EU accounts for a fifth of immigrants and a quarter of outflows.
Family and spouse reunification of third country nationals
In 1974 the ban on relatives of foreign workers came to power.
The reunification of spouses and families for EU citizens is now regulated by EU law, for all others (except for diplomats ) the German Aliens Act was in effect until 2005 . According to the Aliens Act, children and spouses of Germans living in Germany and foreigners with a fixed residence status are primarily entitled to join them . In most cases, entry visas for family reunification must be applied for in the country of origin of the persons wishing to move.
In 1998 the German diplomatic missions issued 63,000 visas for spouses and families to join them. A third made up the transnational immigration of wives to their foreign husbands, of which a third was of Turkish descent.
Emigrants
In addition to the recruitment of workers, repatriates were another important source of immigration as a result of the lost Second World War and the division and reduction of Germany by the Allies . The repatriates from Eastern Europe are legally considered to be Germans and therefore enjoy a much better legal status than the other migrants. However, the repatriates also experience social difficulties and integration problems.
The number of repatriates between 1988 and 2004 was three million, in 1990 it was 397,000. According to the new German citizenship law , repatriates including their spouses and children are entitled to naturalization ( naturalization entitlement). Resettlers within the meaning of Article 116 of the Basic Law are German people from the states of the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European states. The decisive factors are the criteria of German ancestry , the influence of German culture and evidence of having committed to German ethnicity in their previous settlement areas. The largest group of emigrants are people from the areas of the former Soviet Union , so-called Russian Germans . The second largest group in 1990 were resettlers from Poland with 134,000 people, in 1998 there were only 500.
The Consequences of War Settlement Act of 1993 tightened the bases used for the absorption of repatriates German minorities in Eastern Europe by introducing the evidence reversal. A collective fate following the war is only suspected in favor of Germans from the areas of the former Soviet Union . If the former members of the German people came from other areas of displacement , they now have to make their individual fate credible. At the same time, the number of visits was limited to a maximum of 225,000 people per year and proof of German language skills was required. As of January 1, 1993, immigrants with this status are formally called Spätaussiedler to distinguish them . As a result, the number of ethnic repatriates who immigrated mainly from the former Soviet Union (98 percent) fell continuously to 59,093 in 2004.
Since 2005, family members have also had to prove that they speak German.
Asylum seekers
The right to asylum is part of the German constitution and, according to Article 16a, allows politically persecuted foreigners to immigrate, provided they do not come from a third country classified as “safe”. The Federal Office for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees (BAFl) examined and decided the asylum applications. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has now replaced the BAFl. A rejected asylum seeker has the opportunity before a German administrative court against the official decision to sue .
The second legal source is the binding Geneva Refugee Convention (GRC). As a result, a foreigner as a GRP refugee receives protection from deportation if his life and freedom in his country of origin is demonstrably threatened because of his race , religion , nationality , belonging to a certain group or because of his political convictions. This formulation was also found in Section 51 of the German Aliens Act.
1.784 million asylum applications were received in the 1990s, in 1992 alone there were 438,000 applicants. The tightening of the asylum law in the form of the so-called asylum compromise in 1993 reduced the number significantly to 99,000 and in 2004, with 35,607 applications, reduced it to the level of 1984. The largest groups were refugees from former Yugoslavia and 15 percent from Romania with a quarter . The Romanian applications shrank from 104,000 in 1992 to 341 in 1998. Eleven percent of the asylum seekers were of Turkish origin.
About 84 (1995) to 88 percent (1998) of asylum seekers from the former Yugoslavia were Kosovar Albanians and 81 (1995) to 83 percent (1998) from Turkey were Kurds. Between 1999 and 2003, the main countries of origin of the applicants were Turkey with 12 percent (81 percent Kurds), Serbia and Montenegro with 10 percent (41 percent Albanians and 34 percent Roma ) and Iraq with 8 percent (44 percent Kurds). As a result, most of them fled from ethnic conflict.
In addition, there are so-called de facto refugees (not a legal term ) whose deportation has been temporarily suspended because there is a significant risk to life, limb and health in their country of origin or because of urgent humanitarian reasons that require their continued presence in Germany. This protection against deportation according to the Geneva Refugee Convention is also called “small asylum”. An estimate from 1997 put around 360,000 people affected.
The BAFl only approved a small part of the asylum applications. The lowest recognition rate was in 1993 with 3.2 percent, the highest with 9.0 percent in 1995. Not included, since not statistically recorded, the number of recognitions in the course of proceedings before the administrative court. The authorities granted between 2.7 (1995) and 5.7 percent (1997) percent of the applicants protection against deportation under the Aliens Act. In 2003, the BAMF made a total of 61,961 decisions in pending asylum procedures. The recognition rate fell to 1.5 percent. 1.8 percent of the applicants were granted the small asylum, another 1.6 percent were granted a tolerance , i.e. suspension of deportation .
The UNHCR has been scourging the current legal practice since 1998, especially in Germany, which is reflected in small recognition numbers. It contradicts the text and the spirit of the GFK (DBK (1998): 23) and hopes for a standardization at the level of the European Union with regard to a common immigration and asylum policy in order to grant protection to all people who, out of justified fear of persecution, are theirs Have to leave home.
Most asylum applications between 1990 and 1998 were in Germany, around one million in the US, 406,000 in the UK, 283,000 in the Netherlands and 267,000 in France . In relation to the population, Switzerland and the Netherlands were ahead of Germany. Since 2000, Great Britain, Germany and France have been the main receiving countries for asylum seekers within the EU. Of the 7.3 million foreigners living in Germany in 2003, 1.1 million were recognized refugees and their families. (188,000 of them quota refugees ).
Quota refugees
The immigration of Jews from the territory of the former Soviet Union was regulated from 1991 to the end of 2004 by the Quota Refugee Act (Act on Measures for Refugees Admitted as Part of Humanitarian Aid Operations). The law was created on April 12, 1990 at the endeavors of the freely elected People's Chamber , which wanted to apologize for the SED , which had refused any historical responsibility for the victims of the Holocaust and their descendants. Approved applications entitle the holder to obtain an unlimited residence permit in Germany, a work permit and training grants . A birth certificate proving that you are Jewish or that you have at least one Jewish parent sufficed as proof . The reasons for the migration that began around 1990 were the anti-Semitism observed in the former Soviet Union and the desperate economic situation after the collapse of the former world power .
The law was adopted after reunification and ceased to apply with the introduction of the Immigration Act on January 1, 2005. The federal and state interior ministers originally planned tougher regulations for the entry of Jewish immigrants. They did not submit this until the end of 2004, against which the Central Council of Jews successfully protested. It was renegotiated so that even the Union of Progressive Jews was satisfied. Today you can immigrate if you have a “Jewish nationality ” in your old Soviet passport or if you can show that you have a Jewish parent. The spouses of the person entering the country and their underage, unmarried children may enter the country with them. However, independent livelihood security is required (for this purpose, an integration prognosis is drawn up based on the self-assessment of the person wishing to enter the country, which takes into account the professional qualifications, the opportunities on the job market and the family environment). Victims of National Socialist persecution are exempt from this rule . In addition, proof of basic knowledge of the German language is required. In addition, proof must be provided that there is the possibility of admission to a Jewish community in Germany. Such evidence is provided by an expert opinion from the Central Welfare Office for Jews in Germany with the involvement of the Union of Progressive Jews.
From 1990 to 1998 over 100,000 Jews immigrated to Germany from the area of the former Soviet Union. By 2004 the number rose to 188,000. The Free State of Bavaria alone took in 30,000 of them .
The immigration of Soviet Jews was also intended to strengthen the numerically weak Jewish communities. According to the Jewish religious law, the Halacha , a Jew is someone who is of a Jewish mother or who has converted to Judaism according to the relevant rules of an ( orthodox ) rabbinical court . Therefore, many Jewish communities did not recognize the newcomers as members. The number of members of the Jewish communities rose from almost 30,000 in 1990 to over 105,000 in 2004. In addition, the language barrier proved to be a major obstacle.
Bosnian war refugees
In view of the amount of asylum applications due to the ethnic cleansing of Croatian and Serbian militias , especially against the Muslim population in the war in Bosnia , the Federal Republic of Germany granted special legal status for war and civil war refugees in the German Aliens Act in 1993 in Section 32a . This regulated the temporary stay until the asylum seekers can live safely in their countries of origin again. From 1994 to 1996 over 300,000 refugees came from Bosnia-Herzegovina , many of whom returned to their homeland after the end of the war. Germany also granted considerable funds for reconstruction in order to offer the returnees prospects for the future.
In 1999, 180,000 members of the former Yugoslavia lived in Germany with legal tolerance. Also included are many Albanians who have lived in Germany for a long time, whose asylum applications have been rejected by the BAFl, but which today's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia does not accept again.
Temporary employee migration from non-EU countries
With the nineties, the temporarily employed group of contract and seasonal workers and showman assistants developed , which can best be compared with the former guest workers of the 60s. The recruitment of workers, mainly from Poland and Hungary , was based on the partial lifting of the recruitment ban for foreign workers in 1973. Economically, this is due to a sectoral shortage of workers in Germany, especially in agriculture , despite high general unemployment as well as the hotel and restaurant industry.
In contrast to the former guest workers , the duration of the stay is limited and permanent immigration to Germany is also legally excluded by corresponding international treaties . The residence permit and work permit for seasonal workers last a maximum of three months. The number rose from 130,000 in 1991 to 200,000 in 1998 and to 325,000 in 2004. Agriculture accounts for 90 percent, the rest works in the hospitality industry . Most of the seasonal workers come from Poland.
In the case of cooperation between German and foreign companies, the contract workers can stay in Germany for up to three years. The latter work mainly in construction, their number fell from 95,000 in 1992 to 33,000 in 1998, then climbed to 43,804 by 2003.
Poland and Hungary became member states of the EU as part of the EU expansion in 2004 , but Germany still has restricted rules for the free movement of workers from these countries. Since 2004, German farmers have also had to pay contributions to the foreign social security system for foreign seasonal workers .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- Jump up ↑ aufwohnbedingungen.de ( Memento from July 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ hagalil.com