Germany: Asylum Seekers Make Demands
by Soeren Kern
October 23, 2015 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6753/germany-migrants-demands "Human traffickers and the media in their home countries are making promises that do not correspond to reality." — Hans-Joachim Ulrich, regional refugee coordinator.
The migrants said they were angry they were being asked to sleep in a huge warehouse rather than in private apartments. Hamburg officials say there are no more vacant apartments in the city. "The city lied to us. We were shocked when we arrived here," said Syrian refugee Awad Arbaakeat.
"One of the men, who spoke broken German, said they [a family of asylum seekers from Syria] were not interested in viewing the property because I am a woman... I was taken aback. You want to help and then are sent away, unwanted in your own country." — Aline Kern, real estate agent.
"A constitutional state cannot allow itself to be blackmailed." — Marcel Huber, Bavarian politician.
"I man. You woman. I go first." — Muslim male with a full shopping cart at the supermarket.
An asylum seeker from Somalia successfully sued the German Agency for Migration and Refugees for taking too long to process his application -- 16 months. The agency said it currently has a backlog of 250,000 unprocessed applications.
Seventy percent of migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria who were offered apprenticeships fail to complete them. According to the director of the Munich Chamber of Trade, many young migrants believe apprenticeships are beneath them.
Asylum seekers are increasingly using tactics such as hunger strikes, lawsuits and threats of violence in efforts to force German authorities to comply with an ever-growing list of demands.
Many migrants, unhappy with living conditions in German refugee shelters, are demanding that they immediately be given their own homes or apartments. Others are angry that German bureaucrats are taking too long to process their asylum applications. Still others are upset over delays in obtaining social welfare payments.
Although most asylum seekers in Germany have a roof over their head, and receive three hot meals a day, as well as free clothing and healthcare, many are demanding: more money, more comfortable beds, more hot water, more ethnic food, more recreational facilities, more privacy — and, of course, their own homes.
Germany will receive as many as 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015, including 920,000 in the last quarter of 2015 alone, according to government estimates. This figure is nearly double the previous estimate, from August, which was 800,000 for all of 2015. By comparison, Germany received 202,000 asylum seekers in all of 2014.
With refugee shelters across the country already filled to capacity, and more than 10,000 new migrants entering Germany every day, Germany is straining to care for all the newcomers, many of whom are proving to be ungrateful and impatient guests.
In Berlin, 20 asylum seekers sued the State Agency for Health and Social Welfare (Landesamt für Gesundheit und Soziales, Lageso) in an effort to force local authorities to speed up their welfare payments.
Berlin expects to receive 50,000 asylum seekers in 2015. German taxpayers will spend 600 million euros ($680 million) this year to pay for their upkeep.
Also in Berlin, more than 40 migrants, mostly from Pakistan, seized control over the observation deck of the city's television tower and demanded stays of deportation, jobs, and exemptions from mandatory residence (Residenzpflicht), a legal requirement that asylum seekers reside within certain boundaries defined by local immigration authorities. More than 100 police were deployed to the tower to remove the protesters. After a brief questioning, they were set free. Police said no crime had been committed because the migrants had purchased tickets to the observation deck, some 200 meters (650 feet) above the Berlin.
In the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, more than 400 migrants, mostly from Africa, occupied an abandoned school because they no longer wanted to live in tents in a nearby square. When 900 police arrived to clear the building, some migrants poured gasoline inside the structure and threatened to set themselves on fire, while others threatened to jump off the roof of the building. "We are currently negotiating with local authorities about how to proceed," a Sudanese migrant named Mohammed said. "We will not leave until our demands [amending German asylum laws so they can remain in the country] are met."
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