What should Germany do about Immigration
Germany and the Refugee Crisis
Current Immigration Climate
Since 2015 Germany has taken in over one million refugees. Most of the refugees are from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and most of which are Islamic according to a Business Insider article from March 2016. Since most of them are coming from Syria and the Middle East, they usually just walk their way to Germany through other countries like Serbia, Austria, and the Czech Republic. Most of the refugees have requested asylum in Germany through their legal systems and most of them have been accepted. The reason why they come to Germany is that Germany has large amounts of government programs and easy asylum programs. Historically speaking Germany has had a large relationship with Turkish immigrants in the 1960’s. They had enough come in that it makes them the second highest ethnic population in Germany. However, the Turkish immigrants have been harder to integrate into Germany because of their religion and the ethnic Germans unwilling-ness to cooperate.
http://www.businessinsider.com/impact-refugee-crisis-on-germanys-economy-2016-3
http://m.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-716067.html
Current Policy
Currently as of 2016 Angela Merkel enacted an open border policy for Germany. An open border policy means that a refugee can enter without going through a legal process for asylum. Angela stated that Germany would take in as many refugees as they could. Before in 2015 when a large population of migrants moved through Europe, Germany had a very loose policy on immigration as they received around 700,000 asylum seeking applications from migrants. Almost all of those applications were accepted according to the Business Insider. Germany’s older policy states that someone could seek asylum if they hadn't been accepted in another country like Switzerland or Austria, and if they were fleeing for persecution or war. Germany has had to deal with the economic back lash for letting all of the immigrants in as they have had to pay around 21 billion Euros worth of money to pay for the immigrants which is 0.7% of their GDP in 2015. So far the government pays around 15,600€ in subsidies per person in the country and will be paying more as they let more refugees in.
Political Climate
The political climate in Germany has changed over the past 2 years. When Merkel announced the open border policy a significant amount of Germans created a parliamentary political party called the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland). They are the newest political party of Germany on the Authoritarian-right quadrant of the political compass. They are a very authoritarian party however they are not a “right-wing extremist” party they are a nationalist party. In relationship to the CSU (Christian social union) they are actually very close to each other on the compass. Since 2016 support for the AfD has risen while support for the mainstream parties has dropped significantly. During the Bundeswahl (federal parliament election) 2017 the AfD is now the third biggest party in parliament with around 12.8 percent of control or around 94 seats. The AfD is a more authoritarian/nationalist party then a far-right “neo-liberal” party their mind set on immigration is to deport all of the immigrants who came during the great rush from 2015-present (AfD.de). The German parliament has had a more Authoritarian shift vs a right or left shift. However, if the AfD wants to enact a policy they will have to cooperate with the other parties if they want a majority vote on policy.
Proposed Policy
I Think that Germany should cease letting immigrants into their country based on the fact of the Munich rapes and the economic problems they have had because of it. In several major German cities on New Years Eve 2015, there were 24 alleged rapes, 497 sexual assault crimes, 612 other sex crimes and several hundred reported thefts. It was later found that a majority of the perpetrators were men from North Africa and the Middle east and that they had come during the European immigration crisis. The reason for these assaults is under Sharia Law, Muslim Men are viewed higher in value then women and there for are not treated as equals under that religious laws . Usually in Islamic culture women have to wear the Hijab or the Burka to cover their body otherwise they will be prosecuted for it under Sharia law. Germany afterward updated its laws so that immigrants convicted of sexual assault would be deported immediately. The second problem is that Germany has had to bail out other countries' economies as well as pay for all of the individual subsidies of immigrants. According to Business Insider they pay around 15,600 Euros per immigrant per year which costs them around .7 percent of their GDP in 2015.
How Germany should handle their immigration problems is first abolishing the open border policy that Merkel put into action in 2016. Next, they need to strengthen their asylum seeker policy so that the immigrants have to go through an elaborate series of tests to adapt and understand German culture. The immigrants do not however, need full assimilation they need to understand the differences from Islamic culture and German culture. Next the country will stop paying for immigrants after six months of them living in Germany legally and will not bail other countries out for future financial mishaps with immigrants. Next Germany will set up mandatory German language learning classes so that communication with the immigrants its easier for everyone. Now the possible opposition against this idea would be from “Die Linke” the left wing populist party for Germany wants to keep immigration as simple as possible so that immigrants can be constant members of the EU. The very possible repercussions in Europe is that immigrants could travel to the neighboring countries like Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovenia. Those countries are smaller than Germany and do not have as strong economies or as strong of government welfare. The most likely result is that the Muslim immigrants will assimilate to the language and some of the culture and then eventually co-exist in Europe.
http://www.deeidentity.eu/database/manifestoescoun/party-left-die