The war in Ukraine is currently forcing millions of people to leave their homes and their familiar lives. Some of them, around 30,000, have now arrived in Switzerland. They have been warmly welcomed (so far at least) by the authorities and civil society alike.

As pleasing as this “welcoming culture” is, it also clearly reveals the inhumane features of Switzerland’s racist migration policy. Many have written about it before us, even the major daily newspapers could no longer avoid stating that “refugees are treated unequally”. And yet, or perhaps precisely because of this, we also want to comment on it – not least because this “unequal treatment” directly affects many people in the ASZ.

Anyone who has been involved with Swiss migration and asylum policy for some time will have rubbed their eyes in amazement at how quickly and unbureaucratically Switzerland activated S protection status for Ukrainian refugees. And at the same time, in their own astonishment, they will have had to grab their nose too and remember that this should not be stylised as “generous”, but should be seen as “self-evident”. Protection status S allows (albeit for a limited period of time), among other things, immediate access to employment, family reunification, free mobility and choice of canton of residence, financing of German courses (including in ZH), rapid admission of children to mainstream schools, free choice of doctor and more. These are basic rights that the asylum movement has been demanding for decades – in vain.

It is obvious that many other people from war-torn and crisis-ridden regions who have fled to Switzerland for political or existential reasons have been denied these rights for years. While on the one hand it is finally being realised that so-called asylum care is not enough to live on, on the other hand it remains accepted – by the authorities and society – that people are housed for years in precarious conditions and isolated from society. In particular, those people whose reasons for fleeing have been deemed insufficient by the SEM live for years in emergency aid camps (so-called return centres) in poverty and without prospects.

These people have no right to do an apprenticeship or to work. They have no right to a German course and the journey to the free programmes is often too expensive, as the 8.50 francs per day are barely enough to survive. The children who grow up under these conditions go from one traumatisation to the next and have no chance of a stable environment, which they so desperately need.

Fortress Europe’s policy of isolation, which is based on racism, is thus reproduced every day in the centre of our society. The people affected and their supporters have been demanding the abolition of these inhumane structures for years – and have always been told that there is no alternative. But if the current situation makes one thing clear, it is probably this: If the political will is there, then so much becomes possible.

We demand the reception and equal treatment of ALL refugees and an end to inhumane, racist asylum and migration policies!