Asylum seekers demand legal status
Ethiopian and Eritrean asylum seekers demonstrated outside canton Vaud's parliament on Tuesday for their residency to be legitimised.
They cannot be expelled since their home countries will not take in people who have been forcibly repatriated.
The demonstrators waved posters in front of the parliament building in Lausanne saying “We’ve worked in Switzerland for years” and “Our children were born in Switzerland”.
At a media conference, representatives of the group – which numbers 175 – said they were “bitterly disappointed” and “angry”.
They said they had integrated into Swiss life and had paid taxes and social-insurance contributions.
Many of the female demonstrators with children held up their family records provided by the canton.
One month ago the Swiss government decided to withdraw the protestors’ work permits, which are due to expire at the end of July.
Ethiopia and Eritrea will only let people return if they do so voluntarily.
The authorities in canton Vaud now want to speed up the process of voluntary return.
Employer solidarity
Demonstrators explained that they fled from Ethiopia for political reasons and did not want to take jobs from Swiss people.
The group has now asked the cantonal office for asylum seekers to re-examine their situation.
Many employers have shown solidarity with their staff, according to a director of an old people’s home. She said she had refused to fire her Ethiopian employees.
A spokesman for the Federal Migration Office said the situation in Vaud was “painful”.
“At the moment we can’t see any solution,” he said.
He added that the demonstrators were not in a truly desperate situation and would not have to fear reprisals if they returned home.
Odd canton out
Vaud’s cantonal government has been criticised in the past for being reluctant to expel failed asylum seekers.
Last year it came under pressure from the federal authorities in Bern to fall into line with other cantons.
Vaud was the only canton that did not follow federal instructions to deport those whose applications to stay in Switzerland had been rejected.
swissinfo with agencies
In 2002 the authorities in canton Vaud started to regulate the files of around 2,000 asylum seekers whose applications had already been rejected by the government.
1,280 files were initially passed to the Federal Migration Office.
175 dossiers – those of the Ethiopians and Eritreans – were rejected without further examination.
Of the other 1,105 cases, 582 received provisional approval and 523 were again rejected for asylum.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.