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Migration boss defends Aargau public pool ban

Switzerland’s top migration official has defended rules preventing residents of the new federal asylum centre in Bremgarten from moving freely around the town.

Migration boss defends Aargau public pool ban
Asylum seekers won't have freedom to roam the town. Photo: www.bremgarten.ch

The head of the Federal Office for Migration, Mario Gattiker, told the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper it was “totally normal” for the town authorities to limit asylum seekers’ freedom of movement.

Bremgarten in the canton of Aargau is hosting the first temporary federal asylum centre to open since June when voters approved changes to the law designed to speed up the asylum process.

The town authorities have stipulated that the new residents must stay away from public sport venues and schools.

Gattiker said the rights of asylum seekers would continue to be fully guaranteed and no sanctions were envisaged for anyone breaking the rules.

“Asylum seekers won’t face a general ban on entering school grounds or sport venues,” Gattiker explained.

“But they have to discuss the visit with the asylum centre management so that they can inform the local authorities.”

“We want to prevent a situation where 50 asylum seekers all want to use a football pitch or go to the open-air pool at once,” Gattiker told the paper.

“This could lead to friction and resentment.”

He said the restrictions would be in place Monday to Friday between 7am and 6pm.

The new centre is designed to house up to 150 asylum seekers over a three-year period. The first 23 people moved in on Monday.

The first group was made up of men, women and two children from Eritrea, Tibet, Sri Lanka and Sudan, the newspaper reported.

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ANALYSIS: Will immigration to Switzerland continue to grow or could it slow?

In the past few years, an increasing number of foreigners have come to Switzerland, swelling the ranks of its population to 9 million people. Will this trend continue in the future?

ANALYSIS: Will immigration to Switzerland continue to grow or could it slow?

From a country of just 8 million people a decade ago, Switzerland’s population grew to over 9 million residents in 2023 — primarily due to more foreign nationals coming in.

“Switzerland has been in a situation of uninterrupted demographic growth for several decades, and this is explained in particular by the arrival of young migrants, who also contribute to the Swiss birth rate,” Philippe Wanner, professor at the Institute of Demography and Social Economics at the University of Geneva told The Local.

Just in the period between July 2022 and July 2023, for instance, more than 90,000 foreigners settled in Switzerland.

Now forecasts call for the population to swell to 10 million within the next decade — which has prompted the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) to collect enough signatures to launch a national vote in the near future to stop more foreigners from coming into the country.

The SVP argues that Switzerland’s infrastructure — including housing, healthcare system, and public transportation — would not be able to withstand so many more residents.

READ ALSO : Switzerland faces new anti-immigration vote 

This is based on the assumption that as many — or even more — foreigners will continue to move to Switzerland in future, attracted by salaries that are quite a bit higher than the wages they would earn for the same kind of work in their home countries.

But is there a credible scenario under which immigration will slow down?

According to Swiss demographer Hendrik Budliger, high immigration numbers in recent years “don’t necessarily mean the trend will continue.”

Certain things would have to happen at the political and economic level, however — both in Switzerland and abroad — for this scenario to become reality.

These are the main ones:

Fewer people leaving their home countries

One factor, according to Budliger, would be that other countries in Europe that are grappling with labour shortages as Switzerland is “will try to retain or bring back their workforce.”

In Italy and Portugal, for instance, “significant tax deductions are granted” to keep their workers from leaving.

“If more countries create such [financial] incentives to retain employees, Switzerland will become less attractive,” he pointed out.

Economist Manuel Buchmann agreed that  “EU nations themselves need this skilled workforce and are willing to do a lot to ensure that their nationals don’t leave the country.”

Fewer job vacancies in Switzerland

The country is suffering from an acute shortage of qualified workers — the main reason why many employers are hiring workforce from the EU and EFTA (Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) nations.

If, however, Switzerland’s low unemployment rate should increase, or if suitable candidates can be found within the country, then companies will not recruit employees from abroad.

This is especially true as the Swiss law stipulates that a job can be offered to a foreign national only if no qualified candidates can be found in Switzerland.

Anti-immigration initiatives are accepted

In 2020, 61.7 percent of voters turned down SVP’s proposal to curb immigration from the EU.

This meant that Swiss companies could continue to recruit from those countries.

However, if voters decide to go the opposite way — for instance, by accepting the SVP’s latest anti-immigration proposal — then the government would have to implement measures to drastically curb the number of foreigners coming into the country.

READ ALSO: Why Switzerland can’t rely on foreign workers to fill its labour shortages

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