After ending mandatory military service, Germany is struggling to fill its military ranks. The pressure to rethink recruitment strategies has led to some surprising policy proposals and raises broader question of whether Germany might consider recruiting non-citizens generally for military service.

Merkel's newly released "Marshall Plan with Africa" claims to tackle migration causes at their roots - but is this clear-headed policymaking or an early campaign move to appease German voters?

Are we witnessing a global shift to the right? A new study on German political attitudes by the University of Leipzig suggests a loud minority may be drowning out the moderate middle. 

We are pleased to announce the nine communities that will participate in our 2017 Welcoming Communities Transatlantic Exchange.

The Welcoming Communities Transatlantic Exchange is a unique opportunity for leaders in Germany and the U.S. to share promising approaches to welcoming and integrating immigrants and refugees into their communities. Applications for the 2017 cohort are due by December 1, 2016 (Midnight, U.S. Eastern Time). 

 From September 23 to October 1, sixteen American integration professionals and public officials will travel to Germany for a nine-day, five-city visit, to learn about Germany's approach to refugee integration. The visit is part of the Welcoming Communities Transatlantic Exchange (WCTE), a reciprocal exchange program bringing together integration practitioners from Germany and the United States to share ideas and best practices on welcoming and integrating refugees into their respective communities. 

"The “refugee crisis” is, in fact, a crisis of European politics. It reflects growing narrow-mindedness, fear of the future and national parochialism in Europe." Hbs Co-President Ralf Fücks on the future of Europe and on ways to successfully shape a European refugee policy.

Both Germany and the US face a rising tide of right-wing, anti-immigrant parties and sentiments. But the US has developed a unique response. 

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. 

After a recent visit to Washington, Sergey Lagodinsky, head of the EU/North America Department at the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Berlin, reflects on Americans’ understanding of the European refugee crisis and the failure to anticipate long-term repercussions for US foreign policy interests.

Media Fellow Dawid Krawczyk reports on workers' self-organization in New York's Chinese community, showing that unions are not the only way to represent workers' interests. 

With thousands of refugees coming to Germany every week, local administrations are overstrained with the provision of basic needs. In many cities, civil society groups have stepped in to the fill the gaps.

In a speech in November 2014, President Obama announced the increased deportation of illegal immigrants with a criminal record because they threatened the security of Americans. He emphasized that this only concerned felons, not families - but felons have families, too, counters the organization Families for Freedom.

A few weeks ago, Germany erupted in outrage over reports of sexual harassment and attacks on women during the New Year’s festivities in Cologne and other German cities. But new legislation in the German Bundestag highlights just how short-lived the commitment to women’s rights and so-called “German values” really is.

Integration practitioners to share best practices and develop concrete efforts to establish welcoming infrastructures in local U.S. and German communities: hbs North America, in partnership with Welcoming America and Cultural Vistas, is pleased to announce the Welcoming Communities Transatlantic Exchange! 

The New Year's Eve attacks and the subsequent anti-migrants protests in Cologne have refueled the debate about German values, whether all of the migrants that have entered the countery share those values, and if they can be successfully integrated into society. Yet what exactly these values might be remains unclear - to many Germans and asylum seekers alike.

#hbsMigration study tour participant Yvanna Cancela and her colleagues from the Culinary Workers Union in Nevada wrote a letter to Governor Brian Sandoval to express their disappointment about his request to halt Syrian refugee resettlement in Nevada.  

The mass-scale sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany have inspired a political blame-game—but condemning women’s conduct or Europe’s open border policies won’t serve the victims of Cologne or the refugees who continue to need our protection. 

Hbs media fellow Dawid Krawczyk talked to Arun Kundnani, author of The End of Tolerance: Racism in 21st Century Britain and The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror, about terrorism, ISIS, and Islamophobia in the US.

While Germans are generally well-known for their efficiency, the situation at the asylum registration center LaGeSo (Landesamt für Gesundheit und Soziales) in Berlin is anything but. 

Our ‪#‎hbsMigration‬ study tour participants on Germany, immigrant integration, and why they still believe in the American dream.

In the aftermath of the Paris and San Bernadino attacks, Colorado House of Representatives Majority Leader Crisanta Duran calls for bipartisan dialogue and compassion for those fleeing violence. 

With a backlog of more than 350,000 asylum applications, Germany is under pressure to speed up the asylum process. But efforts to quickly process Syrian refugees have resulted in asylum decisions on the basis of nationality rather than case-by-case. That’s good for Syrians, but it shortchanges Afghanis and others fleeing violence and conflict. 

Just as US presidential candidates – with the notorious exception of Donald Trump – know that they cannot win without the support of minority voters, the upcoming Canadian parliamentary elections are seeing parties doggedly courting the support of Canada’s minority and immigrant communities. As the Toronto Star predicts, “the big battlegrounds in 2015 will be where the immigrants to Canada have made their new homes in this country.” But who are Canada’s immigrants and why do they have so much influence in the October 19th elections?

For Europe, the current refugee crisis presents a two-fold challenge: Will we uphold our humanitarian values, that is, do we view the refugees as people in need and with a right to a safe haven? And will the EU, in the face of this challenge, act as one – or will national selfishness erode European unity?

On June 24, the Heinrich Böll Foundation together with the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) and the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement hosted a panel discussion examining Europe’s migration crisis featuring Cem Özdemir, co-chairman of the German Green Party. An audio recording of the event is now available.

At the southern border of “Fortress Europe”, the Mediterranean has turned into a graveyard. The current migrant crisis in Europe is about more than a risk to the EU’s reputation. It strikes at the core of the EU’s founding values.  A continuation of its half-hearted response to the migration crisis is out of question.

We spoke with Katrin Göring-Eckardt, co-chair of the parliamentary group of The Greens in the German Parliament, about the value of diversity, the willingness of the German society to welcome refugees and how to improve their situation in everyday life.

We talked with Luise Amtsberg, Member of the German Bundestag, about Germany’s response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Middle East, the refugee influx at Europe’s southern borders, and what needs to be done to increase European solidarity in response to these challenges.

Five years into the financial and economic crisis the European Union has not been left unchanged. Is (more) Europe still a good idea?

The NSA scandal is not just a problem for the American democracy. Other American, European, Asian, and African people have also a right to know the whereabouts of their private data.

As international troops begin to withdraw from Afghanistan, it is important to strengthen the civilian component of international assistance beyond 2014. The Heinrich Böll Stiftung and the Center for American Progress brought three Afghan civil society leaders for meetings with the U.S. administration and United Nations in February 2013. You can find their policy recommendations on the presidential elections in 2014, talks with the Taliban, and broader political reforms here ...

As the world relies increasingly on the internet, new challenges arise with regards to the best policies to govern our online experience with considerations for copyright, regulation and privacy. A recent visiting group of German internet experts explored the differences and similarities in the U.S. and E.U. approaches to internet policy.

Eleven years ago, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1325 (October 31, 2000). This groundbreaking resolution sent a significant message to many countries, including Israel. Anat Thon Ashkenazi of the NGO Itach-Maaki Women Lawyers for Social Justice describes the efforts of the implementation of UNSCR 1325 in Israel to date.

Towards the end of the six-year interim period defined in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), Sudan is potentially sliding into yet another crisis. The general elections in April – the first in 24 years – represent a rare test of confidence for the country’s incumbent elites. For many observers, however, the elections are merely a prelude to the referendum on the future status of South Sudan scheduled for early 2011.

In Fall 1989, the Wall dividing East and West Germany fell, bringing about transformations that permanently altered the trajectory of politics and society. Using examples from material culture, the exhibition Iconoclash! – Political Imagery from the Berlin Wall to German Unification, premiering at the Goethe-Institut Washington November 4, 2009 – January 8, 2010, captures thesentiments during the decades of change from the 1980s to the present.