Abstract

Germany's Cold Shoulder

The immigration issue in Europe is a highly emotional one. The past three years saw promising moves toward resolving the country's immigration problems, but in the past six months security concerns and a deepening economic crisis have radically changed people's thinking on the issue. Walking around any big German city it is hard to deny that Germany is already, defacto a nation of immigrants. When the social democrats took over in 1998, the government made some impressive changes. A new citizenship law passed three years ago meant that having German blood was no longer the only way to get citizenship. The green card program, started the following summer, was the first attempt in nearly thirty years to import a foreign labor force.