• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Germany: Cuts in benefit for immigrants

Germany: Cuts in benefit for immigrants

01 March 1995

The Federal Health Ministry reported to be planning a new law known as the "Auslaenderleistungsgesetz" or Foreigners' Benefits Law which is designed to cut the level of social security payments available to certain classes of immigrants. The new law would mark an extension of a ruling previously applied to some 90,000 asylum-seekers and which could now affect as many as 600,000 people. The main categories of people affected will be civil-war refugees (eg: from ex-Yugoslavia) and so-called "tolerated" asylum seekers who have been in the country for over a year. The proposals would mean these groups of immigrants would have their social security benefits cut by 25% and benefits would no longer be paid in cash but in the form of stamps exchangeable only for specific goods at specific stores (a measure already in practice for many asylum seekers). In future hospitals would be allowed to refuse to treat immigrants affected by the law except in the most urgent cases. The social policy spokesperson of the German Coalition Green Party, Andrea Fischer, said of the proposals: "This is state-planned racism". Berlin Anti-racist Information Network, March 1995.