HAMBURG, Germany — Young, educated and motivated, José Leonardo Cabrera Barroso is just the kind of immigrant the German government says the country needs.
Originally from Venezuela, he settled in Germany, learned the language and obtained his German medical license. At 34, he is specializing as a trauma surgeon, working in a hospital in Hamburg.
It took him six full years – and because of his experience, he was allowed to apply for citizenship earlier than the required eight years.
“For me, this date was a must,” he said in Hamburg after his citizenship ceremony in February. “After all the work I put in to get here, I finally feel like I can celebrate.”
But if your path to becoming a German citizen wasn’t easy, neither has the effort to simplify that process.
After months of negotiation, the government presented a plan last month to make it easier and faster for people with special abilities like Cabrera Barroso to become citizens in just three years.
Supporters say the changes are necessary to offset an aging population and a shortage of skilled and unskilled workers. Given the majority held by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s tripartite coalition in parliament, the new law is expected to pass this summer.
But before that, the proposals have sparked a harrowing debate over a fundamental question: Is Germany a country of immigrants?
At the end of 2022, 1.1 million more people lived in Germany than at the end of 2021, thanks to migration. There are currently 84.3 million Germans. One in four have had at least one grandparent born abroad. More than 18 percent of Germans were not born there.
In Frankfurt and some other cities, residents with a migration background are in the majority.
But many Germans still do not recognize the diversification of their country. “The Opposition does not want to accept or admit that we are a nation of immigrants; they basically want to hide from reality,” said Bijan Djir-Sarai, who came to Germany from Iran when he was 11 and is now the secretary general of the Free Democratic Party, which is part of the ruling coalition.
In addition to reducing the time an immigrant must live in the country to apply for citizenship, the plan will allow people to maintain their original citizenship and ease language requirements. The conservative opposition has staunchly resisted relaxing the requirements, criticizing them for giving away rights granted to German citizens too easily.
That argument has resonated with some Germans at a time when migration remains a fixation of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party, which has risen in the polls.
Still, more than two-thirds of Germans believe changes are needed to alleviate the rampant shortage of skilled workers, a recent survey finds.
For some, like Bonnie Cheng, 28, a photographer in Berlin, the changes will have come too late. She had to renounce her Hong Kong citizenship last year, making her the only one in her family with a different citizenship. “If you want people to feel included, you shouldn’t trash their identities,” she said.
By: Christopher F. Schuetze
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6750545, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-06-08 22:20:08
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