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IMMIGRATION

Swiss brace for refugee trickle to turn into flood

Border guards in crisp blue uniforms rush onto the train as it grinds to a halt, quickly rounding up around a dozen African men and herding them into a nearby hall.

Swiss brace for refugee trickle to turn into flood
Refugees in Italy: most are avoiding Switzerland — for now. Photo: AFP

Between 30 and 150 migrants and refugees are intercepted each day at the train station in the small southern Swiss town of Chiasso.
   
The numbers pale in comparison to the waves of migrants and refugees taking the perilous Mediterranean route to Greece and on up through the Balkans towards more hospitable countries in northern Europe.
   
But this lazy border town in Switzerland's Italian-speaking Ticino region is bracing for an expected influx as crowds of migrants try to navigate a growing number of closed borders in the east and as the number of possible routes dwindles.
   
“At the moment, everything is under control, the situation is stable, but tomorrow that could change,” said Patrick Benz, head of the Swiss border guards' migration unit.

Thousands per day?

Norman Gobbi, head of Ticino's regional government and member of the populist rightwing Lega dei Ticinesi party, meanwhile said border closures and tighter border controls elsewhere could easily push large numbers towards Switzerland.
   
“We are in the process of planning for possibly managing thousands of arrivals per day,” he told AFP in his office in the regional capital Bellinzona.
   
Switzerland, which has already taken in some 9,000 Syrians since the conflict there exploded in March 2011, last week agreed to take in 1,500 of the 40,000 asylum seekers European countries want resettled from overstretched Greece and Italy.
   
Not many Syrians are crossing into Chiasso for the time being, however.
   
Most arriving here, by train, car or on foot, are from a range of African countries and have first travelled to Libya before attempting the perilous Mediterranean crossing to Italy.
   
While they so far make up only a fraction of the over half million migrants who have arrived in Europe this year, their numbers are climbing.
   
Between June and August, around 5,000 crossed the border into the town of just 8,000 inhabitants — more than double the number during the same period last year.
   
Chiasso, which historically has served as the main migrant gateway to Switzerland, has withstood greater numbers in the past, with hundreds crossing each day during the Balkan war in the 1990s.
   
But the current rise is wearing on both the Swiss population and asylum seekers already in the town who are facing growing anti-immigrant sentiment.
   
“You can feel it,” said former Ethiopian government regulator Melekot Woldemichael, who has been waiting in Chiasso for five years for a decision on his asylum application.
   
But, the 53-year-old insisted, “it's natural . . . they are afraid for their own security, so even if they say anti-immigrant feelings, you have to understand them — I'm not saying that they're right.”

 At sea for 23 days

Chiasso mayor Moreno Colombo, meanwhile, stressed the need to prepare for a surge in arrivals “while the situation is calm”, and said the town had asked for more border guards.
   
Some reinforcements have already arrived.
   
At the Chiasso station, a guard sent from Switzerland's German-speaking region, wearing a buzz-cut, steel-rimmed glasses and blue plastic gloves, questioned the Eritreans and Gambians pulled off the latest train from Milan.
   
“Why have you come? Do you know where you are?” he asked, over-enunciating to make himself understood.
   
The men and boys looked dazed as they were finger-printed and given bright yellow bracelets with new ID numbers.
   
They were also asked if they wished to seek asylum.
   
It's a crucial question: If they says yes, they can remain in Switzerland while the application is processed, but if they instead want to go elsewhere in Europe they will be sent back to Italy.
   
That is because Switzerland, while not part of the European Union, has agreed to the Dublin Regulation, under which asylum claims must be processed by the first European country refugees arrive in.
   
A Somali woman, clutching a six-month-old baby still sick after spending 23 days at sea in the Mediterranean listened intently as the guards explained what would happen once her asylum application had been filed.
   
The pair would be taken to the registration centre in Chiasso for medical examinations and then to an asylum centre elsewhere in Switzerland.
   
After she had been gently led off, one of the guards sighed heavily.
   
“I'm conflicted — the large numbers arriving means problems for Switzerland,” he said.
   
“But it's so tough to hear their stories and try to imagine what I might do in their situation.”

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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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