A prospect of staying? Differentiated access to integration for asylum seekers in Germany

Abstract

This paper investigates the normative permissibility of differential inclusion policies, taking Germany as a case study. In the face of mounting asylum applications, Germany introduced new administrative rules differentiating access to integration for asylum seekers. The paper normatively examines whether this practice is consistent with two conventional liberal concepts: special obligations grounding the moral commitments of the liberal state towards its own citizens and the principle of legal certainty grounding its moral commitments towards everyone under its jurisdiction, including asylum seekers. Combining these two usually separately employed perspectives, it argues that while differential inclusion is in principle consistent with these liberal principles, the crude criterion of the country of origin does not comply with both perspectives. The paper contributes to the debate on the ethics of immigration by scrutinizing this realworld instrument of differential inclusion from a political philosophy perspective.

“I don´t put people into boxes, but…” A free-listing exercise exploring social categorisation of asylum seekers by professionals in two German reception centres

“…In 1990 the term "safe countries of origin" became part of German asylum law, thus an assumption of illegitimacy on the basis of nationalities was legally established. After the peak in refugee inflow in 2015, yet another new term was politically introduced, now there is talk of "good" and "bad" prospects of staying [147,148]. Especially people from so-called "safe countries of origin" and from countries with a past protection quota of lower than 50% [149] are assumed to have a poor prospect for a positive asylum decision (For a discussion of the lack of legitimacy of this pre-supposition, see [57,148,150]).…”

Post‐2015 refugees in Germany: “Culture of welcome”, solidarity or exclusion?

“…ii They are accordingly offered certain privileges such as free access to integration courses, possibility of obtaining work permit after three months, etc. The prospect of stay has created a within-status precarity in the German legal system and has been also criticized for not complying with liberal principles (Schultz, 2020).…”

Deserving the Right to Work? Immigration Officials and the Work Permit in Germany

“…Thereby, a 'hierarchy of deservingness' (Holmes and Castañeda, 2016: 19) became established. For instance, the administrative category of the 'prospect of staying' differentiates asylum applicants according to their country of origin in those likely to be granted a protection status and those likely not (Schultz, 2020a). While the first receive earlier access to (economic) integration measures, several restrictive measures were introduced for the latter .…”