Germany: Asylum and immigration (4)
01 January 1991
Germany: Asylum and immigration
artdoc April=1995
CSU proposals on `Quasi citizenship' criticised
The German coalition government says that it will not allow dual
citizenship as a matter of course but will instead bring about
changes to help integrate 6.5 million foreign residents.
Proposals include cutting the length of residence required by
foreigners before they can apply for citizenship from the present
fifteen years; new `child nationality' rules, whereby children
would be able to gain `not-quite citizenship' if at least one
parent was born in Germany, and if both parents had lived in
Germany for at least 10 years. Such partial-citizenship would be
valid up to the age of 18 - at which point the `foreigner with
German child nationality', would revert to being an ordinary
foreigner, unless he or she renounced his or her original
nationality within the year.
Not surprisingly, the proposals have been criticised as
confusing and complicated. The question of citizenship,
meanwhile, has thrown a spotlight on the divisions in Germany's
new coalition government. The Liberal Free Democrats, a junior
partner in the coalition, has demanded that improvements be made
before the planned law is presented to the Bundestag for
ratification.
The liberal Süddenutsche Zeitung commented on the new
proposals: `How nice. The child may call itself German - but
legally it is not German. It is quasi-German ?' (European
11.11.94, Guardian 12.11.94, Independent 15.11.94, Jewish
Chronicle 25.11.94).
New law increases powers of border police
The Bundestag have passed a law giving the border police greater
powers of search and surveillance and increased budget for
equipment and man- power.
The border patrol - which is a federal police force drawn from
army recruits - is now permitted to operate not only along the
border itself, but also at a distance of 30km from it. Within
this `war-like security zone', border patrol units, acting
without search warrants, are allowed to raid apartments and
`other civilian targets' in search of `illegal foreigners'. The
Roma NC say that they have amassed many eyewitness reports of
increasing police brutality towards Romany refugees attempting
to cross the border. Before they are sent back, they are taken
into police custody, separated from other family members,
stripped naked and searched and their belongings, including cash,
confiscated (Romnews No 24. 24.11.94).
Policing of German Polish border
The premier of the east German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
Berdt Seite (CDU) says that a joint German-Polish border police
force should be created within the framework of Poland's ties to
the European Union (Balkan News 1.11.950).
The Polish Council in Berlin says that each month they receive
an average of 2 complaints from Polish citizens about police
mistreatment at the border. In December, a 40-year-old Polish
doctor was beaten up at Guben on the Polish-German border after
border police forced him to leave his car (Berliner Zeitung
20.1.95).
Government acknowledges deaths in custody
Following a question to parliament by the PDS, the government
have officially acknowledged that there have been since 1990
fifteen deaths in police custody of foreigners awaiting
deportation. The overwhelming majority of these have been
suicides (Taz 27.10.94).
Deportees forced to pay for their deportation!
Several of Germany's sixteen states have been charging deportees
for the cost of their deportation, including jail stays. The
Social Democrats have been severely embarrassed by revelations
that the state of Baden-Württemberg has been charging £54 per
night in a police cell, with marginally lower rates in Bavaria
and Lower Saxony. Under Germany's foreigners law and a federal
asylum statute passed last year, such practices are legal though
still the exception rather than the rule. When the deportees
cannot pay with cash, any valuables they mig