It should be easier for tolerated people and people in the asylum process to work. The federal government also hopes that this change will appease the heads of state governments somewhat.
Asylum seekers and foreigners who have a toleration permit should have quicker access to the labor market in the future. This provides for a formulation aid that the Federal Cabinet has decided on together with further changes to immigration law and the Code of Criminal Procedure.
It stipulates that tolerated persons are generally granted an employment permit. In addition, the ban on working for refugees living in initial reception centers for single people should be lifted after just six months. The ban was previously in effect for nine months.
The traffic light coalition also wants to change the deadline regulation for the so-called employment toleration. So far, this option can only be used by those who came to the Federal Republic before August 1, 2018. In the future, everyone who entered Germany by the end of 2022 should be able to take advantage of this opportunity to have long-term prospects of staying.
People who have made “obviously unfounded” asylum applications from so-called safe countries of origin or who have refused to clarify their identity should not be able to benefit from the relief that has now been introduced.
What does toleration mean?
Tolerated people are people who are obliged to leave the country but cannot be deported for certain reasons. As of June 30, a total of 279,098 people in Germany were required to leave the country – 224,768 of them had a toleration status, for example because they have no identification documents, are sick or have a minor child who has a residence permit.
“Employers are desperately looking for workers, municipalities need relief and people who work contribute something and become taxpayers,” said the deputy Green party leader, Andreas Audretsch. While Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) and others escalated rhetorically in migration policy, the traffic light coalition was looking for pragmatic solutions.
Data exchange regulations
The cabinet also decided on regulations for the automatic exchange of data in immigration and social law. This is intended, for example, to ensure that an immigration authority is informed if someone no longer receives social benefits.
Conversely, the office that takes care of the payment of living benefits should hear directly from the immigration authorities when a foreigner has moved away. Currently, “benefits authorities only receive data on the departure of a foreigner upon request in individual cases,” says the draft law.
A proposal to tighten penalties for smugglers was also passed. Smugglers who carelessly put people’s lives at risk should in future be punished with a life sentence or imprisonment of 10 to 15 years. So far the penalty range here has been 3 to 15 years.
Conversations about migration policy
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the state prime ministers will discuss migration issues again next Monday. In addition to the call for more money from the federal government to care for refugees, the states and municipalities are also increasingly demanding that the number of asylum seekers coming to Germany be limited.
Many of the changes now decided by the cabinet were based on the decisions taken at the meeting between the Chancellor and the heads of government of the federal states last May, emphasized Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD). When asked by a journalist how many additional workers could be expected as a result of the planned change to employment permits, the minister replied that it was difficult to give concrete figures.
The Green Party politicians Ricarda Lang and Winfried Kretschmann wrote in a joint guest article for the “Tagesspiegel”: “When capacities – like now – reach their limits, the numbers must also fall.” The party leader and the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg emphasized that, with all due humanity, “control and repatriation are part of the reality of an immigration country like Germany.”
The left-wing domestic politician Clara Bünger welcomed the easing of access to the labor market that the cabinet has now decided on. However, she criticized: “Entire groups will continue to be subject to a blanket ban on work, such as refugees from so-called safe countries of origin or people who are assumed not to be involved in clarifying their identity.”
The Union parliamentary group’s domestic policy spokesman, Alexander Throm, complained about a further mixing of asylum and employment migration. “It will then be easier for foreigners to get to Germany with an asylum application than with a university degree,” criticized the CDU politician. The problem was not those who were not allowed to work in the first few months, but rather the many recognized refugees who were allowed to work and were able to work, but still lived on social benefits. Mobilizing them to work must be the government’s focus.
The AfD called for a “real migration turnaround” and described the planned cooperation between several Nordic countries on deportations as a model. According to the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Integration, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland had agreed, among other things, on the goal of organizing joint flights to a third country in cooperation with the EU border protection agency Frontex so that people can leave the country without a residence permit.