Asylum pressure on Baume-Schneider is increasing

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As soon as the new SP Asylum Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider (59) took office, the SVP emphasized the numbers: in 2022, Switzerland registered 75,000 Ukrainian refugees and 24,500 asylum applications, 64 percent more than the year before. The People’s Party immediately pointed to Baume-Schneider: “There are too many foreigners and the wrong ones – but the SP Bundesrat wants to do more.” Baume-Schneider responded; However, not as requested by the SVP.

The federal councilor made sure that young Ukrainian refugees can start and complete an internship. And she wants to revive the so-called resettlement program that her predecessor Karin Keller-Sutter (59) suspended at the end of 2022. The program enables particularly vulnerable refugees to go through an asylum procedure on the spot.

“The federal councilor is sending completely the wrong signals,” says SVP country councilor Martina Bircher (38, AG). She calculates: “Because of the high protection percentage, Switzerland can only reject 40 percent of asylum seekers. In these cases, the return rate is 50 percent. That means that four out of five asylum seekers will stay here forever despite the negative decision.” This is all the more worrying as the number of asylum applications is soaring this year.

Migration policy is domestic policy

The repatriation rate also worries FDP State Councilor Damian Müller (38, LU): “Eritrea is one of the countries that does not allow repatriations. But hundreds of Eritreans do not need any protection from Switzerland. They take up space that vulnerable refugees need.” Müller has filed a motion. He calls on the Federal Council to find a third country that will accept rejected Eritreans.

Asylum pressure remains high – especially at the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM). At the end of February, 12,300 asylum applications were being processed there. Parliament approved 75 additional posts. “However, this capacity is not sufficient to handle the requests expected in the coming months,” the SEM told SonntagsBlick. “That’s why we’re recruiting extra staff.”

At the center of the storm is SEM director Christine Schraner Burgener (59). The experienced diplomat took over in early 2022. Initially praised for her work ethic, a cooler wind is now blowing in her face in the Bundestag building. Your predecessor Mario Gattiker (66) has actively approached MPs, says a civilian member of parliament. He informed each other confidentially at an early stage and thus facilitated unsatisfactory searches. “Gattiker has understood that migration policy is mainly domestic policy,” says the parliamentarian. “Schraner Burgerer doesn’t.”

communication even more important

Recent example: the SEM consists of four management areas, but from May there will be five. The Asylum Directorate is split up. The Federal Centers Department now has its own directorate. The SEM issued a short press release about this in February. It’s just that no one noticed. Several parliamentarians heard about it for the first time this week – from SonntagsBlick.

The reorganization decided at the end of 2022 is a major turning point. With 780 employees, the Asylum Directorate is the largest area of ​​the SEM. The split creates uncertainty and some employees also generate resentment. “There were concerns from the start,” says the SEM. The internal project management, together with the departments involved, worked out the new organizational structure with the new responsibilities and demarcations.

Communication will probably become even more important in the coming months, including with Parliament. Because the SVP is waiting there. And she’ll probably have the numbers on her side. The SEM itself sent a confidential situation update to the cantons on Thursday, which comes with new forecasts for the refugees from Ukraine. The paper is available for SonntagsBlick.

Answers read from the sheet

In it, the SEM outlines two scenarios: a relatively mild forecast expects up to 2,400 new applications for protection status S in March, the second scenario is much more pessimistic. It assumes “an event occurs that leads to up to 35,000 additional S requests (spread over three months or within a few weeks). Such an increase could occur with a successful Russian offensive in the spring or summer of 2023 or with significant energy shortages in the winter of 2023/24.”

Such a development is currently quite unlikely, the SEM notes – but it is one of two possibilities the authority is presenting to the cantons.

Schraner Burgener has been in office for a year, Baume-Schneider for almost a hundred days. “It’s a challenging situation,” says center chairman Gerhard Pfister (60). The SP Bundesrat has so far only placed minor emphasis on a certain area. “It’s barely noticeable.” This became apparent during the session when she read her responses to the SVP’s advances from the newspaper. “In the future you will have to argue more,” says Pfister.
Baume-Schneider will have the opportunity to do so tomorrow: in Schiffbau in Zurich she will speak for the first time about her first hundred days in office.

Source:Blick