New right of residence: Opportunity for tolerated persons

The traffic light government had announced a paradigm shift in migration policy in the coalition agreement. With the draft law on the new right to stay, the coalition is now showing that it means business.

After a series of tightening of asylum and residence laws by the grand coalition, the traffic light has decided to make a fresh start in migration policy: reduce irregular immigration, allow regular immigration.

The draft law on the right to stay shows that the federal government is serious about this. It is an important and correct – because human – step towards more legal certainty for many whose lives have been a stalemate up to now.

It’s about more than 100,000 people. They came to Germany as refugees – from Afghanistan or Iraq, for example. Their asylum applications were rejected, but they cannot be deported to their homeland, for example because it is still too unsafe for them there, because they are ill or because it is not clear which country they come from. Therefore, they are only tolerated here. That means your deportation is only temporarily suspended. They cannot make long-term plans for a life in Germany. They live a life full of uncertainty – and often for years.

Good for the people themselves – and for the economy

For humanitarian reasons alone, it is to be welcomed that these people are now to be given prospects – including a professional one. First of all, this is good for those affected. But the economy, which is suffering from a shortage of staff, should also be happy about it. Because it makes no sense to send people who are already integrated away from here and at the same time worry about how workers could be recruited abroad.

Critics fear that this regulation will undermine the right to asylum and that it could act as an incentive for illegal migration. But the federal government does not want to give away the status referred to as “opportunity right of residence” lightly. She has formulated a clear framework. This probationary right to stay, which is intended to pave the way to a permanent right to stay in Germany, is subject to conditions: those affected must have been tolerated in Germany for five years, they must prove within one year that they can support themselves and that they have a good knowledge of German.

The regulation will explicitly not apply to those who have committed criminal offenses or who withhold information about their identity or lie about it. The law should therefore affect people who have already become part of our society. It’s good that they should now be given a chance – a perspective.