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IMMIGRATION

Asylum seeker protests anger many Swiss

The mayor of the tiny Swiss village of Kestenholz glances sadly around the empty asylum centre, his gaze resting on two massive metal bunks crammed with 12 bare mattresses.

Asylum seeker protests anger many Swiss
At asylum centre in Realp, an asylum seeker stands next to poster promoting aid to refugees who want to return to their home countries. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP

"I really don't understand why this wasn't good enough," Arno Buergi says, furrowing his brow.
   
Only two of the 12 male asylum seekers brought to this northwestern village last Friday are still staying at the makeshift centre.
   
The others left shortly after they were ushered down the hard concrete driveway into the underground military shelter, heading to the train station in the nearby town of Solothurn in protest at living conditions they described as "unworthy of a human being".
   
"There's no air, no windows and 30 people sleeping together . . . that's not the way it should be," Turkish Kurd Abdullah Ochalan complained to public Swiss radio RTS before the protesters were cleared out of the train station early Tuesday.
   
The protest made international headlines, especially as it came just days after revelations that another Swiss town was restricting access to some public spaces for asylum seekers.
   
The men's quarters of the Kestenholz centre are cramped and the air is stuffy, but the living room, kitchen and bathroom are spacious and well-equipped.
   
"I think the accommodation is good," says Buergi, who took over as mayor just a week before the scandal broke.
   
Walking around the shelter in a tee shirt, shorts and flipflops, he rests a hand on the flat-screen TV and nods towards the fussball table in the next room.
   
"The shelter is OK.," agrees Claudia Haenzi, the head of social affairs in the canton of Solothurn.

"It's completely new and renovated, so it's possible to live there."
   
The shelter, she says, is only a temporary solution while the village and canton search for more suitable housing.
   
Human rights activists warn though that Switzerland, which in recent years has faced a spike in refugee numbers, is increasingly using its multitude of military shelters to house asylum seekers for ever longer periods.
   
Denise Graf of Amnesty International's Swiss section says she knows of asylum seekers who were holed up for nine months in such shelters, which "stink, there's no air, no light, and its always noisy."
   
But in the idyllic town of Solothurn, many people were outraged by the protest of the asylum seekers — from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey — and Haenzi says police ended the demonstration because they feared the men would be attacked.
   
"Our system is the only one I know of where people are given an apartment, food and even money if they choose to go back home," says 50-year-old Maria Lutherbacher.

"Switzerland does too much already," she says.

"They shouldn't complain."

Fabio Jeger, also 50 and who heads a logistics company, agrees.
   
"I did my Swiss military service for several years, and lived in such buildings," he says.

"It's not a first class hotel, but you can live there."

The asylum seekers should be grateful for what they are given in Switzerland, he says, pointing out that "it's surely better than the situation that they have at home".
   
Others though lament the lack of compassion.
   
"I think many are too quick to pass a harsh judgement on these people, who most often are really refugees," says 58-year-old Solothurn local Brigitta Huegin.
   
"Lots of people here say that if they're not happy they can just go back to where they came from, but often that is just not possible."
   
Matthias Schneeberger, 36, who is waiting for a train home to Bern at the end of his workday in Solothurn, meanwhile, says he understands that people might get upset at the protest.
   
But it is wrong to compare housing conditions in the countries asylum seekers come from and the lodgings they are offered in Switzerland, which has been spared war and hardship for centuries, he insists.
   
"When you come here and see all of the wonderful infrastructure we have here," he says, "it must be difficult to be asked to live (underground)."

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IMMIGRATION

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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