D The plan by Brandenburg’s Interior Minister René Wilke (SPD) to impose residency requirements on refugees where they have to live is grist for the AfD’s mill. After all, the right-wing extremists have always said that refugees themselves are the problem, no matter what. Now the state government is taking over the narrative. In response to problems at a school in Cottbus, where a few refugee children are causing massive problems, she wants freedom of movement allen massive restrictions on refugees coming to Brandenburg in the future.
So that there are no misunderstandings: If children are aggressive at school, bully, torture classmates and so on, you have to do something. But specifically, with these families in which the parents are overwhelmed, sick or incompetent. And everyone knows: As a rule, such family problems are socially caused; the parents are poor, too young, and have too many problems. And even if cultural influences come into play, such as patriarchal family structures, which sometimes do not set any limits, especially for boys, perpetrators are always individuals.
The idea that such problems can be solved with regulatory measures that punish an entire group based on their origin is subterranean. That an SPD politician presents this as a solutionshows how racist “the middle” in the country now thinks. The Interior Minister is obviously targeting right-wing voters with his measure. The AfD, which has long been the strongest party in the country in polls, will thank him.
If you doubt whether a residency requirement for migrants is racist, feel free to do a thought experiment: someone in the Potsdam Interior Ministry came up with the idea of introducing a residency requirement for Nazis after massive ones two years ago Problems with right-wing radical youth in the town of Burg became known? Or to expel such Nazi teens and their families from a city – just as the mayor of Cottbus has now threatened to do to the bad families? Of course not.
Poor neighborhoods are migrant neighborhoods
What is particularly bizarre about the announced measure is that in Brandenburg, including its cities, the proportion of foreigners is known to be rather low. There may be 50 percent non-Germans living in the Cottbus-Sachsendorf district, where there are massive problems with violent children, but this is an absolute exception. In whole The proportion of foreigners is in Cottbus only 13.2 percent.
In addition, there are reasons why migrants prefer to move to certain areas. Where can you find work, where can you find cheap housing? And above all: Where do other Schwarzköppes live, where is there a migrant economy and culture and – at least mental – protection against the many AfDlers and Nazis in the country? Conversely asked: How can one expect non-whites to be forced to move to some town where there is no work, no social infrastructure, but a population that is mostly hostile to them?
How this is supposed to promote integration remains the secret of the Brandenburg SPD and its Senator for the Interior.