At the end of October, on the occasion of the National Day in Austria, the Ecumenical Council of Austrian Churches (Örkö) made an appeal to the nation’s political leaders in Vienna, urging them to ensure that the situation of the families of refugees well integrated in the country “be resolved in a way conforming to the laws, by granting them a humanitarian long-term residence permit”. “Already in July this year, the human rights committee of the Ministry of the Interior had pointed out that the human right to private and family life must take priority over the State’s interest in expulsion”, says the statement. “The dramatic cases of families of well-integrated asylum-seekers who have been expelled or are threatened with expulsion, without taking into account their active integration in the community, are incompatible” with “the long tradition of humanitarian solidarity” that characterises the country. The bureaucratic shortcomings and the political negligence of recent years cannot be allowed to fall on the shoulders of refugees. “For all those [immigrants] who have lived for years in Austria and are well integrated”, the fourteen Churches that compose the Örkö therefore ask for “a legal solution with clear criteria and a transparent procedure as the basis for a right to permanent residence”. “More rapid asylum procedures, always inspired by the principles of equity and quality, and improvements of the law and in particular its implementation, are also urgently needed”, ends the statement.
