Migration, Public Opinion and Politics: The Transatlantic Council on Migration

By Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung

Public perceptions and media coverage of immigrants and immigration policy are powerful forces in shaping the immigration debate. Understanding public opinion on immigration, how this impacts the political debate and how it affects reform prospects is critical in designing a strategy to advance thoughtful, rational and effective immigration and integration policy.
This volume explores a critical policy issue that has often been underestimated in the migration policy debate: the media and public opinion. This volume contains expert analysis of how our publics perceive immigration and immigrants-from their effects on the job market, to their impact on culture and society, to their prospects for integration. It assesses the forces that are shaping how our publics perceive immigration and immigrants. The authors also highlight patterns and trends in how political leaders speak about immigration. The volume ranges more broadly as well to examine how public opinion and political debates about issues such as globalization, economic crisis and demographic change affect the immigration debate. The work is deeply informed by the Council's transatlantic perspective.
The book focuses in particular on three case studies: the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. The volume includes chapters analyzing public opinion and media coverage of immigration issues in each country. Additional chapters propose strategies for unblocking opposition to thoughtful, effective immigration-related reforms.
This book is the third major product of the Transatlantic Council on Migration. It is a result of the deliberations and thinking of the Transatlantic Council on Migration, which brings together leading political figures, policymakers and innovative thinkers-pollsters, political consultants, journalists, community organizers and politicians-from the USA and Europe.
The Transatlantic Council on Migration is an initiative of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC and its policy partner the Bertelsmann Stiftung. Its work is supported by numerous foundations and several governments. The Council is a unique deliberative body that examines vital policy issues and informs migration policymaking processes across the Atlantic community. Council members include leading politicians and policymakers from both sides of the Atlantic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung
• Release date: Jul 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9783867932721

Book preview

Part I:

The Transatlantic Council on Migration

Council Statement: Migration, Public Opinion and Politics

May 6-8, 2009, Bellagio Conference Center, Italy

Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Annette Heuser

Introduction

The politics of migration can upend the best-laid plans of even the most clear-headed and thoughtful policymakers. As with an increasing number of other complex issues, engineers of immigration reforms must be acutely attuned and responsive to public opinion. They must also understand how their proposals will be echoed (and frequently distorted) by the media. Analysts and idea makers, meanwhile, must fireproof their recommendations-so that they survive not only on paper, but in the heat of public debate. In the controversial realm of immigration, producing groundbreaking and well thought-out ideas is not enough; policymakers must frame these ideas in a way that will resonate with voters and thus have a realistic chance of being implemented. Only through a deep understanding of public opinion on immigration can they do so.

Recent history has proved that this is true even in the best of times. Today, in the midst of a global recession that has fueled nativist sentiment and made the politics of immigration more tendentious, it is truer than ever. Given that migration systems in both Europe and North America are essentially broken, the Transatlantic Council on Migration views as one of its most urgent priorities to help reformers chart a path through the politics of migration.

The goal, therefore, of this Council meeting was to fortify policymakers and champions of reform by systematically analyzing public opinion and media coverage of migration across the Atlantic. By convening an unusual constellation of leading pollsters, politicians, political consultants, journalists and migration experts, the Council was able to assess what is known about public opinion, media coverage and political rhetoric on migration in North America and Europe. The goal was to home in on strategies to advance immigration and integration reforms. The case studies examined by the Council focused on the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, though analyses from other European countries-including the Netherlands, Norway and Spain-also were brought into the discussion.

What follows are the principal conclusions from the Council meeting.

The Politics of Migration: Political Rhetoric, Media Coverage and Public Opinion

In the hands of progressive immigration reformers, political rhetoric is a poorly wielded tool-noticed when it does damage, but rarely used to advantage. Many groups with an anti-immigration agenda have deftly seized the language of security, patriotism and values to mobilize the public for more restrictionist immigration measures. Proponents of progressive reform, meanwhile, get tangled in politically correct language and fuzzy arguments that fail to move voters.

Politicians must learn that the language used to talk about immigration and immigrant integration does matter-perhaps as much as the ideas themselves. The right words can shape public opinion, foster support for policy initiatives and stave off criticism; whereas the wrong words can inflame and polarize public opinion, amplify existing anxieties and mobilize the opposition. A catchword like amnesty activates value judgments and can become lodged in the public consciousness, clouding debates and obstructing policy reforms that rely on a nuanced understanding of the issue.

In order to advance thoughtful reforms, politicians must understand and constantly assess public opinion of immigrants and immigration and frame their words in a way that reflects and addresses public hopes and anxieties. Polls show that people’s everyday experiences with immigrants influence their thoughts above all else, but a politician’s word choice sets the tone for the debate. Indeed, words and phrases can become imbued with new meanings depending on how and in what context they are communicated. Elected officials thus must heed the currents of public opinion and carefully calibrate their words so that policy initiatives have the best chance of being understood and accepted.

The following points are critical to making rhetoric more effective:

1. Language should be straightforward, unambiguous and honest. Euphemisms backfire. A politically correct phrase like undocumented worker polls poorly with the public because it comes off as disingenuous. Illegal immigrant is more effective because it states the issue clearly. The public does not want to be manipulated.

2. Rhetoric should acknowledge genuine public concerns. Politicians must acknowledge and address the public’s concerns about immigration, such as border control, public security and potential crowding in the labor market. Ignoring these concerns-or worse, suggesting they are evidence of prejudice-will only alienate voters. A pragmatic emphasis on problem-solving and a focus on real solutions must be balanced with an appeal to people’s hopes.

3. Politicians should appeal to values and emotion, not just recite statistics. Effective rhetoric hinges on the emotional resonance of key words, and understanding that people process words, phrases, images, values and emotions into connections known as networks of association. Politicians must understand and invoke the lived experiences and values of their constituents, and be mindful of the networks of association a word such as immigrant or asylum seeker will unconsciously trigger. Public opinion is based on (and influenced by) values more than by statistics; therefore addressing a contentious policy issue by defending facts can backfire.

4. Leaders need to be proactive, not reactive. Communication is more effective when leaders address immigration matters routinely and are on the offensive at key points rather than the defensive. Political crises offer opportunities for leaders to set the tone on sensitive issues and boost their authority by proactively creating a joint experience with the public instead of simply reacting to events.

5. Understand ambivalence. People hold divergent and often contradictory opinions on immigration, but can be primed with strong messages that underscore positive associations to immigrants and deactivate negative ones. In the US context, speaking about immigrants as reliable coworkers, trusted caregivers and individuals who share basic American values can spark these positive associations.

Even if policymakers rightly recognize the importance of fine-tuning their political rhetoric, they may not have the capacity to use language in a way that advances their ideas in the court of public opinion. Elected officials often have to speak to multiple audiences at once, and therefore must deliver messages that work on multiple stages (especially with a 24-hour media cycle that seizes upon sound bites and sensational catch phrases). Words may matter more or less depending on several factors, including: public priorities, local context and where the country is on its political trajectory. People can respond to a nuanced position if it appeals to their values, assuages their concerns and addresses their ambivalence, and appeals to their pragmatism and desire for leadership.

Broadly speaking, public anxiety about immigrants and immigration has increased across the globe in the past decade. While well-documented increases in migrant flows and stocks (especially illegal ones) are partially responsible, it is the rapid pace of these changes that has been a key driver of anxiety. Curiously, despite this decade-long trend of growing anxiety about immigration, the global economic crisis had not caused a spike in anti-immigrant sentiment as of the time of the Council’s meeting in spring 2009. People were more worried about their own economic and job prospects than immigration issues. This mild reaction could change if the recession and recovery turn out to be deeper and/or longer than expected, or conversely if the economy starts to pick up and immigrants are perceived to be recovering jobs more quickly and easily than natives.

There is gathering evidence that negative reactions to immigrants are indeed growing. But the issue cuts even deeper. Confidence in government is falling in countries everywhere. Many people no longer believe or trust that governments are properly managing the flows of people and the impact immigrants have on jobs, public services and the civic space. However, there is something approaching consensus as to the right policy prescriptions. Most clearly, publics want governments to create more stable, predictable and usually smaller flows of legal migrants; to dramatically reduce illegal entry; to prevent unscrupulous employers from undermining wages and work standards; and to ensure that immigrants learn the local language, obey the law, pay taxes and respect a country’s civic culture and institutions.

In this context, leadership is crucial in delivering a strong immigration narrative that is likely to garner public support. Politicians who take an active role in the debate, lean into controversial issues rather than respond in a reactive capacity, and emphasize that problem-solving can do well. Policy statements on immigration must appeal to the interests of the country as a whole, be rooted in an understanding of public concerns and current trends in public opinion, and also be forward-looking. Most importantly, immigration should be embedded in a narrative of solutions and measurable progress. Policymakers can cull lessons learned from polls to create more effective narratives and address their constituents’ desire for greater control over their lives. The most effective response is to acknowledge people’s fear of change, instead of trying to counter that fear with facts and statistics.

Public opinion is deeply influenced by media coverage of immigrants and immigration, which both reflects and influences the parameters of the policy debate. In some ways, the media act as an independent social actor, instead of simply as a mediating institution that reflects the concerns of our times, and must be understood as such. Media serve as both an agenda setter and driver on immigration issues, and a mirror, reflecting debates already going on in public and policy circles.

There are certain characteristics of media coverage on both sides of the Atlantic that obstruct the path to reform. The media focus disproportionately on illegality and overemphasize the immigrant as protagonist in that narrative (thus underplaying the role of government or employers in enabling illegality). Also, coverage tends to follow an alarm-bell mentality, as the media seize upon immigration stories primarily during crises, belying the fact that immigration is actually a fairly steady (and positive) social phenomenon. During crises, the loudest voices that get heard on media outlets are those that represent the most extreme positions, thus contributing to a polarization of public opinion that stymies reform and hinders compromise.

An effective political narrative must do three things: ground itself in the current local political context and acknowledge the public’s legitimate concerns about immigration; employ aspirational rhetoric that appeals to people’s emotions and values; and balance an appeal to people’s hopes with a pragmatic emphasis on problem-solving and a focus on real solutions. Also, comprehensive reforms will not work without taking into account the state of the economies and societies from which immigrants come (the root causes of immigration); and the myriad policy areas that immigration affects in the host society (like labor market and social protections, as well as social cohesion).

Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

Globalization, including rising immigration, is changing the fundamental character of our societies more quickly than at any other time in the post-World War II era. People are concerned that the rapid pace of change has left them without control over their lives and that the very identity of their communities is transforming before their eyes. The public has lost confidence in the government’s capacity to come to terms with, and manage, these changes effectively, particularly because the necessary social infrastructure and institutions cannot be built overnight, and only a few governments have engaged systematically in the hard work of preparing society to better understand and prepare itself for this new era.

This perceived loss of control manifests itself in a desire for visible borders and restrictions-a reality which politicians must acknowledge. In a climate where millions of workers, including disproportionate shares of immigrants, are out of work (and the legal status of many immigrants is increasingly at risk), the pressure from populist parties, especially on the right, makes maintaining a reasonable tone both more important and more difficult.

Governments must balance two main priorities: policy (making their immigrant-selection systems smarter) and politics (reassuring anxious publics that flows are managed effectively). An analysis of the interplay among public opinion, media coverage and policy reveals five lessons for crafting effective political rhetoric on immigration:

- In most immigration debates, fear resonates much more viscerally than hope. If advocates of reform do not deliver a strong aspirational message, the opposition will fill the void with passionate, negative rhetoric. Even if positive rhetoric does not prevail, it can blunt the effect of fear mongering.

- Politicians must talk about immigration reform in a way that addresses the national interest, not just the interests of certain segments of society; they must paint a picture of how society and national identity should look in the longer term, and explain how immigration fits into that construct.

- Leaders must strike a balance between language that addresses local anxiety (curbing illegal immigration and managing net legal flows to relieve costs and other pressures on society) and rhetoric that advances national priorities, such as recruiting immigrants with an eye toward maintaining economic competitiveness.

- Ambition must be balanced with pragmatism: it is important to propose legislation that legislators will actually pass, in addition to laws that make the most sense.

- The most effective messages should appeal to three different areas: smart selection (bringing in immigrants who will address economic growth and competitiveness directly); staying true to a country’s core values (e.g., continuing to permit refugee flows; also understanding that immigrants don’t move as economic units, but as families, and thus accommodating family immigration); and respect for the rule of law and security.

In Europe especially, governments must demonstrate to their publics that they are in control of both the composition and scale of immigration. In the past, politicians have made a strategic misstep by avoiding what they perceive to be tough, contentious issues, instead of leaning into them and thus getting them off the table. Perhaps the most critical factor in designing a reform package is to anticipate and help shape what the public will view as success in immigration reform, and ensure that the proposals can deliver this success.

In order to create the political space for this to work, however, politicians and advocates must recognize that immigration touches a deep nerve about national identity. Therefore, policymakers must create a forward-looking, values-based narrative that explains why our societies need immigrants and addresses the public’s practical concerns, instead of merely focusing on technical and bureaucratic issues that leave people feeling unsatisfied.

Balancing values with pragmatism can defuse social tensions. To do so, it is paramount to advance immigrant integration. Even incremental progress on integration increases the room for maneuvering on the broader immigration debate.

Managing the change that results from rapid immigration growth- that is, building the political and institutional infrastructure that can absorb and reflect the new diversity, as well as bringing the public along-takes time and challenges the way societies are organized socially, culturally and politically. Yet, nothing is more critical to succeeding with immigration than that.

Part II:

Public Opinion on Migration

German Public Opinion on Immigration and Integration

Oya S. Abali

Immigration to Germany: A Temporary Phenomenon Becomes Permanent

Until 2005, German statistics only accounted for the resident population with foreign nationality. Since then, additional data has been collected according to immigrant origin.¹ The number of people in Germany of immigrant origin is nearly double that of the foreign population. According to the 2007 micro-census, which takes place once a year and surveys 1 percent of the German population, immigrant-origin residents make up 19 percent of the population.² This data has heightened people’s awareness that German society has already changed and will change even more drastically in the future as a result of immigration. Today, one fourth of all families with children and adolescents under 18 in Germany are of immigrant origin (Federal Statistical Office of Germany 2008). The immigrant-origin population on average is much younger than the native German population, which means Germany’s total population over time will slowly shrink while the immigrant-origin population will grow. Those of immigrant origin will make up more than one fourth of the population by 2050.

To understand public opinion on migration and integration in Germany at present, the dynamics of past immigration that have led to the current situation must be taken into account.

In the 1950s, the West German economy was growing rapidly. The government addressed labor shortages by recruiting foreign workers. Its policy was designed to rotate in foreign workers who would leave after their temporary contract expired. The first wave of labor migrants, known as guest workers, arrived from Italy, Spain and Greece, followed by those from Turkey, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia. The rotation principle was soon abandoned, since many employers avoided the high cost of training new arrivals by extending existing contracts. In the wake of the oil crisis in the early 1970s, the West German labor market contracted. In 1973, the government stopped recruiting international workers, a policy that reinforced the permanency of guest workers.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the West German government focused on curbing labor immigration and introducing restrictive immigration policies. Guest workers were perceived as competing with native Germans for jobs. Numerous guest workers accepted the incentives the German government offered to return to their home countries. But for some groups, like Turkish immigrants, the 1980s were a bad time to go back home. Political instability coupled with severe economic problems prompted many to stay and bring their families to Germany.

Labor migration had primarily brought in single male workers. Family unification resulted in an influx of women and children. Immigration began to impact German society more broadly. The public sector, including schools and the welfare system, had not previously been confronted with the effects of immigration and was not adequately equipped to deal with the changing needs of an increasingly diverse population. Integration was initially not an issue despite family reunification-neither for the guest workers nor for the host society. The perception that immigration was temporary prevailed. The West German government should have devised comprehensive integration measures as part of family reunification polices, but did not. Consequently, integration problems began to take root in West Germany.

Regulating Integration

For many years, public opinion surveys concentrated on Germans’ perception of the scope of immigration and various policies designed to regulate immigration. The general population’s perception of immigrants has undergone many changes over the past decades. Immigration was initially associated with the guest workers and, later on, in the 1980s and 1990s with asylum seekers. Today, the prevailing face of immigration is Germany’s immigrant-origin population, some of whom are third- and fourth-generation descendents of immigrants.

The sentiment that Germany has too many immigrants³ has been widespread. Yet the share of Germans who hold this view has declined steadily from 79 percent (West Germany) in the mid-1980s to 53 percent in 2008 (see Figure 1). While sentiments against migrants have been strong at times, Figure 1 shows that a process of familiarization has taken place, with a growing acceptance of immigrants among the general public.

Negative sentiments about immigrants were particularly strong in the late 1980s and 1990s. This perception was partly due to high numbers of immigrants that confronted Germany with a large-scale, very fast-paced wave of migration. These same years were also marked by changes in Europe’s geopolitical and security framework: the fall of the Iron Curtain, German reunification and the wars in former Yugoslavia changed the German population’s views on the issue of security. In addition to the families of former guest workers, ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and Russia immigrated to Germany; their numbers peaked at 397,000 in 1990.⁴ Liberal asylum policies encouraged asylum seekers to apply for refuge in Germany. In 1988, the number of asylum seekers topped 100,000, shooting up to 438,000 in 1992 (see Figure 2).

Figure 1: Percentage of surveyed persons who think there are too many immigrants living in Germany, 1984 to 2008

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Source: Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach August 1984, June 1998, December 2004, March 2008.

The German constitution affords the right to asylum to politically persecuted persons. The fall of the Iron Curtain and increased mobility led to an increase in the number of asylum claims. The German government considered only a small fraction of asylum claims legitimate as many of these were from people fleeing their countries for economic reasons. In many cases, applications led to a de facto right of residence even if the applications were ultimately turned down, since the legal proceedings took too long and applicants could not be deported to their home countries in cases of hardship. The government’s failure to deal with the sheer scale of claims and the large proportion of failed claims fueled the population’s skepticism as to the intentions of many asylum seekers.

Figure 2: Number of annual asylum applicants in Germany, 1970 to 2007

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Source: German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, Migrationsbericht 2007. 2008b.

An Allensbach survey conducted in 1989 showed that a majority of Germans (59 percent) thought asylum proceedings should be handled quickly and restrictively, with failed applicants being repatriated immediately (Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach February 1989). In the 1990s, when immigration flows dramatically increased, immigration was perceived very negatively. Media coverage mirrored this perception, reporting on bogus asylum seekers coming to Germany to take advantage of the social welfare system. The media portrayed Germany as being swamped by asylum seekers and the boat being full. Illegal immigration was a major concern. This unease extended to long-resident immigrants as well.

Elections in the state of Hesse and the city-state of Berlin in 1989 demonstrated how successful populist and xenophobic platforms could be in such a situation. In Berlin, the Republicans, an extreme right-wing party, attained a historically high 7.5 percent of the vote. In Hesse, another extreme right-wing party, the NPD, managed to win 6.6 percent of the vote. Both parties had crafted their election campaigns around the issue of immigration and the growing number of asylum seekers.

Ultimately, the public and political debate resulted in an amendment to the German constitution and the introduction of more restrictive asylum laws in 1993.

Citizenship Reform

In the 1990s, policymakers recognized the need to modernize Germany’s nationality law-one of the most restrictive of such laws in Europe-because second- and third-generation descendents of guest workers had remained foreign citizens. German citizenship had long been perceived as exclusive and as a privilege granted only on the grounds of certain merits. Indeed, immigrants did not have any legal claim to naturalization until 1993. Public opinion continues to view German citizenship as exclusive, rejecting the idea of dual citizenship while at the same time expecting immigrants to fulfill certain prerequisites to earn German citizenship.

Including ius soli (birthright citizenship by territory) and dual citizenship in legislation were the focus of heated public debates in the 1990s. The public clearly did not favor dual citizenship, with the percentage against it rising from 47 percent in 1993 to over 63 percent in early 1999 as Germany came closer to passing a new naturalization law (see Figure 3).

The issue of dual citizenship also shaped the outcome of the 1999 election in the state of Hesse. The center-right Christian Democratic Party (CDU) started circulating a petition against dual citizenship (Yes to integration-No to dual citizenship). Five million Germans signed the petition, contributing to CDU’s victory in the state. In the wake of the controversy over the CDU petition, supporters of the Christian Democrats increased their opposition to dual citizenship from 61 percent in 1996 to 83 percent in 1999. Those who voted for the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) also became more entrenched, with the share of FDP voters against dual citizenship jumping from 49 percent in 1996 to 74 percent in 1999 (Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach July/August 1995, March 1999).

Figure 3: Public opinion on dual citizenship, 1993 to 1999

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Source: Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach June 1993, November 1994, July/August 1995, May 1997, November/December 1998, January 1999, March 1999.

The new Nationality Law of 2000 law did not permit dual citizenship but contained an alternative known as the optional model of temporary dual citizenship that requires children to choose one of their two nationalities at adulthood. Supporters of all political parties represented in the German Federal Parliament approved of this approach at the time of the law’s passage, with support among even the general opponents of dual citizenship ranging from 52 percent (CDU/CSU) to 74 percent (FDP) (Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach July/August 1995). Under the new law, children of long-term-resident foreign parents born in Germany after January 1, 2000, are granted German citizenship in addition to their citizenship by descent. By age 23, such dual citizens must opt for a single nationality. The first cohort of ius soli children (due to the law’s retroactive application) are coming of age, and the choices they make and how the public reacts to those choices will show whether the optional model works in practice.

The Nationality Law did succeed in making naturalization easier. The law allows immigrants to apply for naturalization after eight instead of 15 years of residence (with proof of independent income and the absence of a criminal record). The immigrants also have to prove they have a sufficient command of the German language and to pledge to abide by Germany’s Basic Constitutional Law (Grundgesetz).⁵ Both provisions reflect the public’s expectations. A very steady majority, ranging from 92 percent in 2000 to 98 percent in 2008, believed that immigrants living in Germany should speak German (Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach April 2000, July 2008). From 1998 to 2008, the percentage of respondents who believe adhering to German values should be a prerequisite for naturalization has wavered by only a few percentage points, reaching a high of 97 percent in July 2008 (see Figure 4).

Results of more recent public opinion polls, such as the ALLBUS Survey⁶ conducted in 2006, show that the majority of Germans continue to reject the idea of generally granting dual citizenship. Asked to indicate the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with the idea of allowing immigrants to naturalize without relinquishing their former citizenship, 40 percent of respondents strongly disagreed and 54 percent rejected the idea to some degree.

Figure 4: Public opinion on whether immigrants should adhere to and accept core German values, 1998 to 2008

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Source: Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach November/December 1998, April 2000, November 2000, May/June 2001, March 2008, July 2008.

The Immigration Act of 2005: A Milestone in Immigration Policy

After the introduction of new asylum laws and the subsequent decrease in the number of asylum seekers, the population no longer perceived the number of asylum seekers as a priority issue. Regulating immigration nevertheless continued to be an important political goal for the majority of Germans, as shown in surveys conducted in the wake of public debates on immigration policies (see Table 1). Surveys conducted from 1993 to 2003 in the wake of the public debate on immigration policies show that a steady majority of Germans supported enacting immigration legislation that would regulate immigration and curb the number of immigrants.

The absence of regulatory measures that led to the large influx of immigrants in the 1980s and early 1990s had made the calls for regulating immigration stronger. In addition, negative perceptions of asylum seekers caused immigrants to be associated with illegal activities and prompted people to support a more restrictive approach. In 1996, a restrictive immigration act was advocated by 53 percent of voters for CDU/CSU, 56 percent of voters for the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the environmental Greens, 48 percent of the voters for FDP and 50 percent of those who supported the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor party to the East German SED (Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach July/August 1995).

Table 1: Percentage of surveyed persons in favor of immigration quotas, 1993 to 2003

Source: Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach September 1993, November 1994, July 1995, September 1996, November 2000, May/June 2001, January 2003.

Considering public sentiment, policymakers must have recognized that a comprehensive immigration could only succeed if it included restrictive measures. The public debate on the new legislation was highly charged partly because the discussions on regulating immigration proved that Germany had become a country open to immigration-a fact that had been denied in political circles for a very long time.

It took many years of negotiations before all political parties agreed on a compromise and the Immigration Act was enacted on January 1, 2005. The Act incorporated the regulation of labor immigration, legislation pertaining to asylum seekers and refugees, and the integration of immigrants.

Attitudes toward Immigrants

Today, immigrants have become a permanent feature of German society, and contact between the native German and immigrant populations has increased (especially in western Germany). In a 2008 Allensbach Institute survey, 46 percent of respondents in western Germany stated they had immigrant friends and close acquaintances, an increase of 16 percent compared to 1985 (Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach January 1985, March 2008).⁷ Young Germans have far more contact with immigrants than older Germans: 65 percent of the respondents between 16 and 24 stated they had immigrant friends and acquaintances, while the level of contact declines with increasing age. Only 32 percent of respondents who are age 60 or older have immigrant friends (Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach March 2008). The results of the Shell Youth Study (2006) are similar: 67 percent of the young people between ages 12 and 25 stated they had immigrant friends and close acquaintances.

However, personal contact has not automatically led to improved relations between immigrants and native Germans. Problems and conflicts are perceived in areas where there is daily interaction between immigrants and Germans, such as the schools, where the deficits of integration become evident. The share of respondents who believed that the high number of children of immigrant origin at German schools cause major problems increased from 47 percent in 1997 to 67 percent in 2008 (Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach March/April 1997, March 2008).⁸

Figure 5: Perceived immigrant behavior regarding contact with Germans, 2008

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Source: Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach March 2008.

In a March 2008 survey, half of Germans said the immigrants they know want to keep to themselves (see Figure 5).

Integration can only succeed if it is a two-way process, with a society willing to accept and integrate foreigners and with immigrants willing to make visible efforts to integrate. For immigrants, it is more difficult to