VIENNA (AP) — The new Austrian authorities mentioned Wednesday that household reunion procedures for migrants can be instantly halted as a result of the nation is not capable of soak up newcomers adequately.
The measure is short-term and supposed to make sure that these migrants who’re already within the nation will be higher built-in, Chancellor Christian Stocker from the conservative Austrian Folks’s Social gathering mentioned.
“Austria’s capacities are restricted, and that’s the reason we’ve determined to stop additional overloading,” Stocker mentioned.
The brand new measure signifies that migrants with so-called protected standing — which means they can’t be deported — are not allowed to convey members of the family nonetheless dwelling of their house international locations to Austria.
The new three-party coalition made up of the Folks’s Social gathering, the center-left Social Democrats and the liberal Neos, has mentioned that curbing migration is considered one of its high points and vowed to implement strict new asylum guidelines.
Official figures present that 7,762 folks arrived in Austria final 12 months as a part of household reunion procedures for migrants. In 2023 the determine was 9,254. Most new arrivals had been minors.
Migrants who’re nonetheless within the asylum course of or have obtained a deportation order should not allowed within the first place to convey members of the family from their international locations of origin.
Most up-to-date asylum seekers got here from Syria and Afghanistan, the Austrian chancellery mentioned in an announcement.
The European Union nation has 9 million inhabitants.
Stopping “overloading”
Stocker mentioned the measure was mandatory as a result of “the standard of the varsity system, integration and in the end the safety of our whole methods must be protected — in order that we don’t impair their means to perform.”
The federal government mentioned it had already knowledgeable the EU of its new measures. It denied to say for the way lengthy it might put household reunions on maintain.
“Since final summer time, we’ve succeeded in considerably lowering household reunification,” Inside Minister Gerhard Karner mentioned. “Now we’re creating the authorized foundation to make sure this cease is sustainable.”
A wider migration curb throughout Europe
All around the continent, governments have been attempting to chop the variety of migrants. The clamp-down on migrants is a harsh turnaround from ten years in the past, when international locations like Germany and Sweden brazenly welcomed greater than 1 million migrants from war-torn international locations resembling Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many communities and cities in different international locations, resembling Germany, additionally say they not have capacities to seek out shelter or properties for migrants.
The EU is attempting to maintain extra migrants from coming into its 27-country bloc and transfer sooner to deport these whose asylum procedures are rejected.
On Tuesday, the EU unveiled a brand new migration proposal that envisions the opening of so-called “return hubs” to be arrange in third international locations to hurry up the deportation for rejected asylum-seekers.
To this point, solely 20% of individuals with a deportation order are successfully faraway from EU territory, based on the European Fee.
The fee has proposed a “European System for Returns” that can set a typical for all 27 members of the bloc and permit nationwide authorities from one nation to implement deportation orders issued by one other. Such guidelines had been lacking from the EU’s migration and asylum pact authorised final 12 months.
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Related Press author Kirsten Grieshaber reported from Berlin.
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