Political asylum, citizenship, and immigration: Towards a modern immigration law in the Federal Republic of Germany

Germany has made fundamental changes to its political asylum and citizenship laws in the last decade. These have been radical departures from traditional and post-World War II policy. In 2002 Germany proposed a "modern" immigration law, called the Zuwanderungsgesetz, that would change the philosophy of immigration to Germany and effectively regulate labor migration for the first time since the guestworker program ended in the early 1970s. This study uses data from interviews conducted with elite German policymakers and experts involved in questions of immigration to explore why Germany has made such significant changes to political asylum and citizenship laws, and why it has proposed a new immigration law. It was found that the recent legal reforms are interconnected parts of a larger process of change that has resolved contradictions borne out of German history. The amended Article 16a of the Basic Law severely restricted access to the asylum procedure in Germany, redefined the limits of Germany's obligation to asylum seekers, and led to a wider discussion about harmonizing European Union asylum law. The reform of German citizenship law, which supplemented the policy of jus sanguinis with jus soli, expresses a national identity that is less volkisch and more accepting of immigrants. The proposed Zuwanderungsgesetz will more effectively regulate immigration to Germany and indicates that Germany has, once and for all, become a country of immigration. Taken as a whole, these legal changes represent a political modernization, a de facto harmonization with European Union laws, and Germany's evolving national identity as an ethnically pluralistic country.