New Ideas, Please: A Bold Vision for a Sustainable Refugee and Immigration Policy

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Refugee Emergency Shelter in Mainz, Germany.

Hbs North America has selected three transatlantic expert advisors to join a commission developing new, progressive integration policies for Germany.  Leen Al Zaibak, Amy Casipullai and Audrey Singer will work alongside German commission members to provide insights into US and Canadian experience in immigration, refugee, and integration policy. 

What is the Integration Commission? 

Launched by our Berlin office, the Integration Commission for “A Bold Vision for a Sustainable Refugee and Immigration Policy” will explore the challenges and opportunities in the vast field of refugee policy and economic immigration over the next year. The commission’s aim is to discuss the conceptual gaps in refugee and immigration policies and to design innovative policy alternatives. Recognizing the 1 million refugees already in Germany, the commission will focus heavily on examining existing integration policies and generating recommendations for a more flexible and comprehensive approach to immigrant and refugee integration.

The commission consists of experts from across all levels of EU to local government, civil society, and academia, representing Germany’s 16 states. To offer an opportunity for transatlantic exchange and learning, Hbs North America will sponsor three experts from the US and Canada to participate in the discussions and to offer relevant experiences and models.

Who are the transatlantic expert advisors?

Leen Al Zaibak, Amy Casipullai and Audrey Singer will be the commission’s transatlantic advisors, working alongside German commission members. They will actively engage in the commission’s working groups and participate in a joint meeting in Berlin in late June.

Leen Al Zaibak is a Senior Manager for Donor Engagement at Free the Children, an international development organization focusing on removing barriers to education. She is the director and co-founder of “Jusoor” (Bridges) – an NGO of Syrian expatriates, supporting Syrian youth through programs in the fields of education and career development. Al Zaibak is also board member of Lifeline Syria, an organization recruiting, training and assisting sponsor groups that welcome resettled Syrian refugees in Canada.

Amy Casipullai is the Senior Policy and Communications Coordinator at the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI). In this capacity, she researches, develops and communicates public policy analysis informed by the experience of OCASI member agencies. She has worked on a broad range of social justice and equity issues, with a focus on the experience of refugees and immigrants.

Audrey Singer is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and a former senior fellow at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. Her areas of expertise include demography, international migration, US immigration policy, and urban and metropolitan change. She has written extensively on US immigration trends, including immigrant integration, undocumented migration, naturalization and citizenship, and the changing racial and ethnic composition of the United States.

Why do we need an integration commission?

What the international media has called the European “refugee crisis” is in fact a crisis of political leadership: Where Europeans coordination is clearly called for, the continent’s political leaders have instead, in the recent EU-Turkey deal, passed responsibility to Turkey—a state that is itself falling back into civil war and which Amnesty International and others have decried for regularly deporting Syrian refugees back to Syria. Across the EU, politicians have failed to offer a clear moral counterweight and practical policy solutions against the increasingly xenophobic rhetoric of rising right-wing parties. Even in Germany, the EU’s shining light for refugees, political pressures are churning out ever more restrictive policies.

Despite the last months’ heated debates, Germany still lacks a coherent policy on refugees and migrants. National legislation - such the 2005 immigration act, which aimed to make Germany a modern immigration nation - is insufficient to address the scope of the recent migration challenge, nor do European agreements such as the Dublin Regulation provide adequate responses for recent developments in displacement and migration. Beyond reactionary policies to the latest developments, policymakers are struggling to credibly communicate actionable approaches to migration, refugees and asylum through new ideas and values-based policies.

What is the commission’s expected outcome?

The commission will meet regularly through Spring 2017, leading up to Germany’s parliamentary elections. It will formulate political recommendations for a humane and sustainable migration policy and for a comprehensive approach to the full integration of immigrants and refugees. The commission will also aim to identify how political, social, economic and other stakeholders can contribute to the integration process. The resulting themes and policy recommendations will be made available to interested policymakers and civil society leaders, and will form the basis for a variety of Hbs activities in Berlin, abroad, and with the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s various regional offices across Germany.

A detailed description of the integration commission in German, including a list of the German commission members, can be found on the Hbs Berlin website.