In a joint communiqué, German Caritas and its Evangelical counterpart Diakonie, through their respective Presidents, have sharply criticised the bill presented by the Federal Government for the application of EU directives on right to residence and asylum. “In its present version, the bill responds neither to humanitarian standards nor to European objectives”, declared Peter Neher (Caritas) and Klaus-Dieter Kottnik (Diakonie). “However important it is that the bill should contain a clear legal definition of right to residence, it is incomprehensible that precisely those [immigrants] whom we have particularly striven to defend, the elderly, the sick, the disabled and the traumatized, are denied any right to residence on the basis of the proposed bill”, said Kottnik, President of Diakonie. “I find it morally unacceptable that these persons should be sent back to their countries of origin: they must have the prospect of a sustainable future here in Germany”. The reservations of Caritas and Diakonie about the bill also regard the way it regulates, or rather obstructs, family reunification: “instead of acting in an effective way against fake or forced marriages, all marriages with foreign partners are subjected to the blanket suspicion that the marriage was contracted with fraudulent intention”, observed Neher, President of Caritas. “The chance for foreign couples to be reunited with their children is made impossible in many cases by the requirement that they be able to demonstrate their ability to speak German even before entering Germany. But if integration is to be successful”, he objected, ” it’s very important to preserve the unity of the family”. The overall judgement of the two humanitarian organizations is negative: “The bill, as it stands, prevents integration instead of promoting it”, added Neher. “In the interest not only of the immigrants involved, but also of our society, we cannot relinquish our obligation to integrate immigrants or fail to integrate them properly”, concluded Kottnik.
