Controversial Swiss asylum centre opens doors

The Federal Asylum Centre in Grand-Saconnex (GE) has opened Keystone-SDA

A new Swiss asylum centre in canton Geneva has opened its doors despite facing fierce oppoisition.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Associations representing the rights of migrants had opposed the construction of the Grand-Saconnex centre.

“This centre is part of the reform of the asylum system accepted by the Swiss population in 2016, including in Geneva”, said Anne Césard, spokesperson for the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM).

It includes 250 places out of the 5,000 to be made available in the country, a quarter of which are in French-speaking Switzerland. “These places are necessary”, she stressed.

The new building, which cost the Confederation some CHF27 million, is located at the end of the runway at Geneva airport, next to the bypass motorway, on land owned by the canton.

Asylum applicants, but no unaccompanied minors, will stay there for a maximum of 140 days. “The advantage for the canton is that it will receive fewer applicants in extended procedures”, explained Césard.

Translated from French by DeepL/mga

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]