SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MIGRATION POLICY: THE CASE OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY*
| Published date | 01 March 1987 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.1987.tb00127.x |
| Date | 01 March 1987 |
Current Trends and Developments
SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS
OF
MIGRATION POLICY
:
THE CASE
OF
THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC
OF
GERMANY*
MIGRATION
POLICY
IN
THE
1980s
In
September
1979,
Federal Government Commissioner Heinz Kuhn submitted his
memorandum on the ‘Status and prospects of the integration of foreign workers and their
families in the Federal Republic of Germany’. He emphasized the long-neglected social
problems resulting from the presence of some
4.6
million foreigners in the Federal
Republic.
A
focal point of the memorandum were proposals for integrating especially the
second-generation foreigners growing up
in
Germany:
-
recognition of the de facto immigration situation, while retaining the ban on the
recruitment of foreign labour imposed in
1973;
intensification of efforts for integration, especially to the benefit of foreign children
and adolescents;
-
granting of the right for foreign adolescents who were born and grew up in the
Federal Republic to opt for German citizenship;
review of aliens law and naturalization procedures with a view to achieving greater
legal security for foreign workers and their families;
-
granting of the right for foreigners who have lived in the Federal Republic for an
extended period to vote in local elections (Kuhn,
1979).
-
-
The main proposals of the Kuhn Memorandum were incorporated into the guidelines
for the further development of migration policy, which were adopted in March
1980
by the
Federal Government, then composed
of
Social Democrats and Liberals.
In
those guide-
lines, the social integration of second- and third-generation foreigners was defined as a
priority of migration policy in the years ahead (Weiterentwicklung der Auslanderpolitik,
1980).
The guidelines were, however, not accompanied by corresponding information and
education for the German population
on
the envisaged integration of foreigners. At the
*Revised version
of
a paper presented at the
XI
World
Congress
of
Sociology, RC
31
‘Sociology
of
Migration’, New Delhi, August 18-22, 1986.
87
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