The municipalities’ frustration with asylum policy remains high. Although the numbers are falling, many problems remain unsolved. Accordingly, people look at today’s meeting between the Federal Chancellor and the states soberly.
Tino Schomann has to think about Christmas. “We have no allocation this week,” says the district administrator of northwest Mecklenburg. This means that no new asylum seekers came into the district. He usually only experiences this on public holidays.
But there can be no talk of relaxation. Schomann has heard from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) that similar figures are expected for the whole of 2024 as in the previous year. That would be 700 to 800 new arrivals. Schomann: “I can already say: That’s not possible.” There are currently 45 places available. They should be occupied by April.
No permanent solution in Upahl
Schomann, 36, CDU, has been district administrator since 2021. The district on the Baltic Sea coast has long had problems finding space for asylum seekers. In January 2023, the district decided to build container accommodation for 500 people in the 400-person village of Upahl. The protest made Upahl and Schomann known nationwide.
The accommodation came, albeit smaller. The 250 places have been in operation since October and are limited to one year – provided Schomann manages to find other accommodation or the numbers decline. But the district cannot build new capacity so quickly. “That is still the really big problem,” says Schomann. At least things are going smoothly in Upahl.
Schomann: “They are the government’s craftsmen”
When the heads of government of the federal states discuss asylum policy with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Wednesday, Schomann doesn’t have any great expectations. The municipalities are not at the table, he says. “We are the craftsmen who work for the governments.”
The federal and state governments want to check how far the joint resolutions from November are. At that time, they had agreed, among other things, on solidarity-based payment of costs, the introduction of a nationwide payment card for asylum seekers and faster returns of rejected applicants.
District Administrator Schomann has little expectations of the federal-state round.
In northwest Mecklenburg, however, deportations have not yet brought any relief. This will not change with the Return Improvement Act, said District Administrator Schomann. He is looking forward to the local elections at the beginning of June with concern. There are fewer and fewer people willing to run for office. Many district councilors are disillusioned.
In addition, there would still be excessive bureaucratic hurdles. Schomann calls for more flexibility in language courses and an expansion of lane changes in order to get capable people into work. The federal and state governments would also have to provide tools to manage the situation on site. Schomann supports the payment card that the state will introduce in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania because it can reduce administrative tasks.
Asylum numbers are falling nationwide
Between 2022 and autumn 2023, the number of initial asylum applications in Germany increased sharply – until, according to the BAMF, it exceeded 35,000 in November. At the same time, Germany took in around a million refugees from Ukraine.
But the number of asylum seekers has been falling since December. Whether it is due to the time of year or the stationary border controls that have been introduced with Poland and the Czech Republic, one can only speculate, says Kristin Kaufmann (Die Linke). The 47-year-old social mayor of Dresden has had a turbulent year.
“At the beginning of 2023 we had great difficulty fulfilling our legal accommodation obligation as a municipality,” says Kaufmann. Now the situation is “calm and stable”.
Kaufmann: “Currently taking a breather”
This is also due to six residential container locations that the city put into operation in January. They offer space for up to 505 people. Term: two years. The consultation and planning were accompanied by protests.
Kaufmann speaks of “right-wing extremist walkers” who had “really jazzed things up”. Since the locations have been online, life there has been “very quiet, without any problems.” The administration has time again to focus more on technical needs in care.
Dresden’s accommodations are currently around 80 percent full. “We are currently in a kind of breathing space,” says Kaufmann. If around 2,200 people came, as in 2023, there would be enough space. Over the course of the month, the hotels that the city had rented for millions from 2022 will even be removed from the lease.
Construction site financing remains
However, money remains a problem. For the time being, the city receives a flat rate asylum allowance of 10,548 euros per person from the Free State of Saxony. The value is preliminary and comes from 2022. According to Kaufmann, the real costs amounted to 15,326 euros. So around 30 percent were not covered. In 2019, this value was just over five percent.
The “solidarity-based cost sharing” that the federal and state governments decided on in November is still on its way. A longer period of basic benefits for asylum seekers, which is favorable for municipalities, only came into force in February. However, the promised flat rate of 7,500 euros per initial application does not yet exist.
Kaufmann doesn’t go far enough. “A person who flees must not be reduced to accommodation.” The municipalities also expected fair financing for accompanying measures such as integration assistance and migration social work.
Ulrich: Votes only reach municipalities “late – or never”
Götz Ulrich hardly hopes that the federal and state governments will move on Wednesday. The President of the Saxony-Anhalt District Council draws a sobering conclusion from the last summit: “From what I hear after MPKs or from the federal government, there is often very little concrete for us locally,” says Ulrich. The coordination between the federal and state governments often only reached the municipalities “months, sometimes years later – or even never”.
Ulrich’s own district, the Burgenlandkreis, is now considered exemplary in the integration of refugees and asylum seekers. Our own migration agency bundles various services. Their “customer base” has recently grown more slowly: after 658 new admissions in 2023, the district only received eleven in February. He doesn’t have to open any new accommodation at the moment, says Ulrich.
And yet the administration is confronted with many problems that, in Ulrich’s view, are unnecessary. The fact that the local authorities still need the approval of the Federal Employment Agency to issue a work permit is outdated. The requirements for course instructors for BAMF language courses are also too high. You can’t find people for that in Saxony-Anhalt.
Support with Work opportunities
A recent initiative by the district administrator of the Saale-Orla district in Thuringia, Christian Herrgott, sparked nationwide discussions. He wants to oblige asylum seekers to work for public bodies and non-profit organizations and thus introduce them to the job market. Hourly wage: 80 cents.
Legally this is possible. In fact, many districts already offer such so-called work opportunities. In the Burgenland district, asylum seekers support caretakers in schools or help with green cutting.
Götz Ulrich would like to have an incentive system: Workers could receive preferential treatment for language and integration courses or have an expense allowance of 80 cents added to the cash limit of their payment card. The latter is expected to be around 50 euros.
Above all, the states should support the municipalities. Because organizing these work opportunities is so financially and organizationally complex, says Ulrich.