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German AfD Party Advocates Employment for Asylum Seekers as Crime Reducing Tool

© AFP 2023 / DPA / DANIEL BOCKWOLDT Refugees are seen in their temporary housing in a former hardware store in Hamburg, northern Germany
Refugees are seen in their temporary housing in a former hardware store in Hamburg, northern Germany - Sputnik International
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Germany should amend the legislation to allow asylum seekers work rather than keep them reliant on welfare and face an environment conductive to crime and conflicts, a spokesman for the Berlin branch of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) right-wing party told Sputnik.

Refugees and asylum-seekers stand on the square by the Kornmarkt shopping center in Bautzen, Germany (File) - Sputnik International
German Soldier Gets Refugee Status, Plots Crime to Discredit Asylum-Seekers
BERLIN (Sputnik), Victoria Mladenovich On Monday, a report published by the German Interior Ministry showed that the number of migrants who are suspected of having committed crimes in Germany increased by 52.7 percent in 2016. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere cited "potentially explosive" ethnic and religious tensions between different groups of asylum seekers living in overcrowded refugee hotels, among other issues, as factors contributing to the crime increase.

"These groups should be separated, if possible. But there's another aspect, which is important: These asylum seekers, mostly men, cannot — under our laws — work and [they] get welfare money. This is a monotonous live. If we abolished all these entitlements and allowed them to work, they would not sit disinterested in these hostels and develop irrational ideas. This would detente the situation," Ronald Glaser said.

In his view, the migrants should be allowed to work "from day one," meaning that both the asylum seekers whose application had already been approved and those who are still in the process would be able to make a living in Germany.

Furthermore, according to Glaser, there are no legal obstacles for this proposal to be adopted, but "[the German] government of course won't abandon the welfare programs, because they want to increase socialism instead of reduce it."

He also rejected the idea that granting asylum seekers the right to work in Germany could cause a backlash from the German public or that the refugees could be accused of "stealing jobs" from the German citizens.

In 2015, Germany declared an open-door refugee policy, becoming one of the key destinations for migrants coming to Europe from the Middle East and North Africa. According to the country's Interior Ministry, the number of refugees that came to Germany in 2016 amounted to some 280,000, compared to 890,000 arrivals in 2015. The majority of asylum seekers arriving in Germany are from Syria or Afghanistan.

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