The head of BAMF which is an organisation that looks at issues affecting foreigners in Germany, Manfred Schmidt, had suggested that refugees who moved to Germany and have qualifications from their home countries, could instead apply for working permits instead of the tideous asylum process that took years and would render most people useless by the time it was approved. Schmidt has argued that Germany has a deficiency for qualified professionals thus shouldn’t let all these professionals who would be useful to the country, have their skills rot in asylum camps. (Read: Qualified Professionals Should Apply for Work Permits instead of Asylum).
Unfortunately the Ministry of the Interior (BMI), didn’t receive the idea as well as everyone had hoped and it was declined. According to the BMI spokesman, “One should not think that a humanitarian problem can be solved by labor migration”.
The BMI spokesman made it clear that they were open to suggestions from Schmidt and BAMF but they shouldn’t have high expectations. BMI also made it clear that BAMF should not try to give visas to refugees based on their academic qualifications. In 2012, BAMF had tried to help some refugees by using their academic qualifications to get them valid visas for jobs instead of having them wait for the asylum process to go through, 37 people profited from this advice but BMI wasn’t happy about it and has now banned the BAMF from doing that.