Closing the door

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 12

Closing the door

By

ROBYN SMITH

in Bonn

Turkish families crossing Eastern Europe in cars, trains and buses are studying with sharpened feelings of anxiety the German phrase they will need when they reach their destination: “Ich bin Asylbewerber” — I am seeking asylum. At stops on the road, according to a recent report in a Turkish newspaper, bus passengers pray aloud “Allah help us. Close ths eyes of the German policemen so they don’t stop us from entering.” In the first five months of this year 60,000 people, mainly from countries with large impoverished populations, have claimed political asylum in West Germany. Now the door is suddenly beginning to close. Within the next few days the German Bundestag is expected to pass a new law making it more difficult for work-hungry foreigners from outside the Common Market to settle and find a job after claiming that it is too dangerous for them to return home. . According to official German estimates, more than 90 per cent of these refugees are not suffering from any form of persecution. Thev are taking advantage of the asylum loophole in the German Constitution which allows those claiming refugee status to remain in the country while their applications are being investigated. This could take anything

up to eight years. While they are waiting, the applicants — mainly from Turkey, India. Pakistan and Bangladesh — have been able to find themselves jobs or receive welfare payments for unemployment and put aside a tidy sum for the day of their expulsion. The asylum racket has not of itself reached disturbing proportions. In an ordinary year it would probably continue unnoticed. But Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s coalition of Social Democrats, and Liberals is fighting an election campaign against the Christian Democrat opposition led by Franz Josef Strauss. Feeling is rising in the country against the influx of foreigners and the opposition has been pressing for curbs on immigration. The Government has now decided to make a move in this direction in order to deprive the opposition of a dangerous campaign issue. Ten years ago there were only 8600 claims for asylum, the majority from Eastern Europe. At that time Turks were still being welcomed into Germany as Gastarbeiter — guest workers — to keep the wheels of industry turning by accepting jobs which German workers were no longer prepared to undertake. There are now 1.1 million Turkish Gastarbeiter, but the flow of new arrivals has been cut off following the oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the steep rise in German unemployment. Last year the number of asylum seekers rose to 51,500.

The Turkish contingent has expanded from 18 in 1970 to 18,000. The traffic is being smoothly handled by “travel agents” in the countries concerned and teams of German lawyers. The German Interior Ministry’s estimate is that there will be 100,000 applications by the end of this year if the flow continues at the present rate. Last year only 5900 applicants were allowed to stay, and more than half of these were Vietnamese boat people. Now the Government has taken first measures to make the German welcome less warm. In future those claiming to be refugees will be denied a work permit and social welfare benefits for the first year after their arrival. The change in the law being debated in Bundestag committees will speed up for legal consideration of asylum claims and confine long drawn-out appeals to exceptional cases. The measures may satisfy some of the 54 per cent of those Germans questioned in a recent opinion poll who felt that the number of foreigners in the country had passed the danger point. But seme German observers are wondering whether the curbs will have much practical effect. While there are still jobs to be had which German workers do not want, foreigners will be there to take them. But in future they will have to work illegally without the minimum security hitheito offered them by the asylum racket. —- Copyright, London Observer Service.