On Friday, cantonal authorities met with the head of the State Secretariat of Migration (SEM), Christine Schraner Burgener, to exchange views on how to meet the demand for accommodation for refugees.
“The SEM recognises the current situation in individual cantons is tense,” an SEM spokesperson told SonntagsZeitung. According to the paper, Schraner Burgener suggested that the federal government is prepared to stop allocating refugees to certain cantons upon request.
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How the Swiss asylum system works
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Switzerland has a long humanitarian tradition but who can apply for asylum in the country and how?
Cantons Bern and Geneva have already been granted a temporary freeze on taking in more refugees. SEM indicated that two more cantons requested a freeze.
This means that refugees would stay in federal asylum centres instead of being allocated to those cantons. Almost two-thirds of the places in federal centres are occupied but SEM expects asylum applications to increase, which requires reserves. “We can’t just look for accommodation when people are at our front door,” SEM spokesperson Reto Kormann told the paper.
Last October, Swiss authorities called on cantons to house more refugees as federal centres reached a bursting point. The cantons were asked to temporarily take in up to 1,000 people per week, double the earlier limit of 500. In mid-December the federal centres were able to relieve the cantons to some extent thanks to additional places made available by the army.
As of mid-February,over 75,000 Ukrainians had been granted protection status S, which allows them to live and immediately work in the country.
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Swiss refugee centres reach bursting point
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The large influx of refugees has filled accommodation centres to bursting point, obliging the Swiss authorities to distribute more asylum seekers to cantons.
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Ukrainian refugees are keen to work, have a good level of English and three-quarters have a tertiary education level, a Swiss survey shows.
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