Word: asylums
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...haven, West Germany has many attractions. The country is relatively safe and stable. It offers steady growth, low inflation and generous welfare programs. Best of all, the Federal Republic has an unusually liberal asylum law that was adopted in 1949 to accommodate Germans fleeing East European Communist rule. Small wonder that roughly 245 refugees, mostly from the Middle East, Iran and the Indian subcontinent, arrive each day. The sharply rising flood of immigrants, however, has set off cries of protest from West Germans...
...they fail to check the papers of passengers flying to West Germany. Refugees from "problem countries" in the Third World will have to apply for visas even if they plan to spend only a few days in the Federal Republic. And those awaiting a decision on their asylum requests may seek employment only after five years. "It is simply not possible," said the Chancellor, "for the Federal Republic to be a refuge for anyone in economic difficulty...
Investigators suspect the Tamils were victims of an international plot to make a profit by transporting refugees seeking asylum in North America. Hamburg police last week arrested two Tamils and a Turk on charges that included violating passport laws and "trafficking in humans." Police identified the vessel that brought the Tamils to Canada as the Aurigae, a 425- ton West German ship that flies the Honduran flag. The telltale clue: the Aurigae's owners had recently bought three lifeboats belonging to the cruise ship Regina Maris. Though attempts had been made to sand off the name, the words Regina Maris...
Many of the refugees apparently reached West Germany after flying from Sri Lanka to East Berlin and then crossing legally into West Berlin. They then fled West Germany because they were worried that authorities would reject their applications for asylum. Since 1949 Bonn has accepted any foreigner "persecuted on political grounds" in his native land. This lenient policy has led more than 37,000 Sri Lankans to pour into the country since 1980. The flood has provoked racial conflicts and calls for stricter immigration laws; new arrivals meet rising hostility. At the same time, rumors spreading through Tamil communities...
...Middle East have arrived in East Berlin in droves. Most of them then hop on the elevated railway that connects East Berlin's Friedrichstrasse station with West Berlin's Zoo station. Once over the border, the newcomers take advantage of a liberal provision in West German law that guarantees asylum to political refugees. In the first six months of this year alone, some 42,000 refugees, most of them Lebanese and Iranians, registered with West German authorities...