Refugees would come anyway
Migration expert: CDU proposal would have serious consequences
07/19/2023, 06:30 am
No more individual asylum applications, but the admission of refugees via quotas: the proposal by the CDU politician Frei has met with open ears, especially in the Union. A migration researcher warns of serious consequences that this solution could have.
The Union politician Thorsten Frei triggered controversial debates with his proposal for a new system in asylum law. Migration expert Daniel Thym warned in “Welt” that Frei’s move would have serious consequences if implemented. People would then continue to come to Germany who could not apply for asylum, could not work and did not receive certain benefits. “If they are threatened with danger in their countries of origin, we must not deport them. As a result, Mr. Frei’s proposal would mean creating a large class of precarious people in Germany,” said the Konstanz immigration law expert.
In a guest article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, Frei, Parliamentary Secretary of the Union faction, had demanded that the individual’s right to apply for asylum on European soil should be abolished and replaced by quotas for taking in refugees in Europe. These 300,000 to 400,000 refugees per year should be selected directly from abroad and then distributed in Europe. “An application on European soil would no longer be possible, and the receipt of social benefits and job opportunities would be completely excluded,” wrote the CDU politician.
Politicians from the traffic light groups rejected the proposals. Criticism also came from the AfD and the left. On the other hand, the CDU domestic politician Christoph de Vries and Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer made positive statements. The Union’s domestic policy spokesman in the Bundestag, Alexander Throm, also supports Frei’s proposal. Frei rightly pointed out “that our migration system is currently causing completely wrong conditions,” said Throm. People handed themselves over to smugglers and risked a dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean Sea. They sometimes crossed half the world “and many safe countries” in order to choose Europe as their “desired place”. Unfortunately, the principle applies: “The strong arrive, the weak fall by the wayside.” Throm said this effect was never intended, neither by the United Nations nor by the German Basic Law. In his opinion, it would be better if the selection was based solely on humanitarian criteria in the countries of origin.
Federal Constitutional Court demands rudimentary care
The migration expert Thym explained that pull factors would be “only slightly” reduced in Frei’s proposal, since “in the opinion of the Federal Constitutional Court, human dignity requires that at least rudimentary care be provided”. Thym criticized: “What about those who are threatened with persecution or human rights violations, but who still arrive here and are not in the ‘contingents’? Are they also deported?” If that’s what Frei means, then that wouldn’t be feasible with human rights, Thym said.
The German Institute for Human Rights also notes that individual access to a fair asylum procedure in Germany and the EU cannot be replaced by those in need of protection being admitted directly from abroad. It pointed out that this possibility already exists “in the context of humanitarian admission programs and resettlement”.