Foreign
THE German Government proposal for new rules on whether refugees living in the country could bring their family to join them irritated opposition parties on both ends of the political spectrum.
The planned rules, debated for the first time in German parliament on Thursday, would allow asylum seekers with subsidiary protection status which stops short of full refugee status to reunite with their families in Germany from Aug. 1.
But the number of family members allowed to come to the country would be capped at 1,000 per month.
The rules were criticised as not going far enough by the far-left Die Linke party and the Greens.
The proposal amounted to “top-down denial of integration’’ by not granting everyone the right to live with their children and spouses, Ulla Jelpke of Die Linke said.
But the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) said the rules would open the “floodgates’’ for a new stream of arrivals.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer responded to the criticism, saying that family reunification would be capped, stressing that there was no legal right to reunification.
The Geneva Convention on the rights of refugees calls for signatory states to allow for family reunification.
The German government halted family reunification for asylum seekers with subsidiary protection in 2016 amid concern over the soaring numbers of arriving refugees and migrants.
Asylum seekers assigned this category among them many Syrians fleeing civil war had to wait two years before requesting family reunion.
The new rules would reintroduce reunification for children and spouses, and would go to the vote in the coming weeks. (dpa/NAN)
Jun. 7, 2018 @ 19:05 GMT |
Tags: New rules for refugee family reunifications irritate German opposition
