Opinion: Don't fiddle with asylum

Lately, it seems that German politicians are constantly presenting proposals for getting migrants into the workforce. New arrivals, it is said, should be able to take care of themselves as quickly as possible. That would save money, the argument goes, as well as allow migrants to integrate into German society more swiftly and benefit the economy. The most recent proposal from the Social Democratic Party states that people from the western Balkans should not be processed through the asylum system as almost all of their applications are denied anyhow. Instead, if they can present an employment contract guaranteeing payment of minimum wage or above, they should be given work visas.

That not only sounds reasonable, it sounds humane. But the one thing that all of these proposals have in common is that they undermine the law: When migrants whose grounds for asylum are not officially recognized are already in the workforce and integrated into German society, you effectively short-circuit the entire application process. Very soon, it simply becomes a matter of permanent residency.

One could strive for that, but one must be entirely clear about the consequences: Word has gotten out that most applicants are allowed to stay in Germany even if they are not politically persecuted in their countries of origin. Therefore, many who might be eligible don't bother applying for asylum, figuring that it is either superfluous or, worse still, might eventually be an impediment to their gaining the right to remain in Germany by other means. A person who has made it here, no matter from what country and under which circumstances, is usually allowed to stay. That fact functions like a magnet.

In proportion to denied asylum applications, deportations are in no way happening in the numbers that they should be. In 2014, there were roughly 202,000 asylum applications, about two-thirds of which were denied. But only 11,000 people were deported back to their countries of origin. Even if one takes into consideration the fact that some people will have returned voluntarily - and that returns delayed with official permission are also included in those numbers - the discrepancy remains quite substantial.

Why have procedures at all?

Whether this generosity in dealing with the right to asylum largely reflects the overall mood in politics and the media - or among the population - is not quite clear. There is much support, but also a great amount of hate, increasingly visible online.

Policy can never be about giving in to xenophobic tendencies. But you have to wonder why one even has an asylum procedure in which each applicant has to demonstrate individual necessity based on political persecution if the end result of the process is meaningless - or if the procedure never even takes place. If we are going to take in every applicant anyhow, then we might as well save ourselves the hassle of the whole tedious process. The debate surrounding immigration law looks similar: As long as we have uncontrolled numbers of migrants entering the country, we don't need to bother discussing an immigration law.

It is fairly easy to mount the high horse of morality in the migration debate. Compassion keeps us from wanting to deny anyone the right to stay. However, tolerance has its limits. Asylum applications will no doubt remain high for the next several years. When the first low-income Germans have to compete with refugees in the housing market, or compete with them for jobs during the next financial crisis, the frequently invoked "Welcoming Culture" could come to a very abrupt end. If we want to maintain tolerance, we must save asylum law by sticking to its rules.

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