North African asylum claims fall after rapid Swiss processing
The 24-hour procedure for asylum applications from North African countries with no prospect of success at the Federal Asylum Centre in Zurich has proved its worth, according to the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM).
Applications from these countries fell by 40% in the first half of the year since the procedure was introduced. Since the end of April, the federal government has been applying the accelerated procedure nationwide.
The acceptance rate for applications from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya is around 1%. The 24-hour procedure ensures that these people, who in the vast majority of cases have to leave Switzerland, do not place an unnecessary burden on the country, as the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) announced on Friday.
+ Why Switzerland is piloting a 24-hour asylum procedure for North Africans
Since November 2023, most asylum applications from these countries have been processed at the Federal Asylum Centre in Zurich. According to the SEM, this centre has seen a decrease of 62%. Across all federal asylum centres, asylum applications from the three Maghreb states and Libya fell by 40%.
Between November and April, 413 people from these four countries of origin applied for asylum at the centre in Zurich. The SEM did not respond to 102 because another Dublin-Regulation country was responsible.
It wrote off 185 applications because the asylum seekers left the centre or failed to cooperate. In 98 of these write-offs, it ordered removal to another Dublin-Regulation country. A further 31 applications were rejected. No asylum requests were granted.
Better flow of information on crime
The federal government and the cantons stepped up their cooperation in dealing with the problems of a small number of highly active offenders in the asylum system, the SEM added. They envisage an improved flow of information and roundtables.
The SEM is not restricting access to the federal asylum centres at weekends. Other measures are intended to prevent abuse of the accommodation centres.
In the past, asylum seekers have regularly registered at federal asylum centres at weekends and left without having their fingerprints taken and thus formally initiating the asylum procedure, the SEM wrote. However, restricting access at weekends would be difficult to implement, as access for vulnerable people must be guaranteed.
On-call service for vulnerable people
The SEM is therefore looking into an on-call organisation in individual centres. Their employees would take fingerprints and check access authorisation. They would turn away people whose asylum application is already being processed in other centres, has been completed or has been written off in the last five years.
Furthermore, asylum seekers from countries with a very low acceptance rate will not have to justify their applications in writing in advance. The SEM explained this decision by pointing to to the major legal and practical difficulties involved. It is looking into alternatives with the cantons.
Adapted from German by DeepL/kc
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
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.