Confederation plans second center for unruly asylum seekers
Published: Thursday, Feb 22nd 2024, 10:40
Retour au fil d'actualité
The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) is planning to open another special center for unruly asylum seekers. However, it has not yet been possible to find a suitable facility in German-speaking Switzerland.
This can be seen in the Federal Council's response to an interpellation by FDP member of the Council of States Damian Müller (LU) published on Thursday. Following various media reports, Müller had asked what the federal government was doing to combat criminal asylum seekers.
There is currently a special federal asylum center in Les Verrières in the canton of Neuchâtel. According to the Federal Council, 108 people were assigned to the center in 2023. On average, seven people were accommodated in Les Verrières - with a capacity of ten places. Most of the people came from the Maghreb.
Due to the low capacity in the special center, unruly asylum seekers were also transferred between the federal asylum centers within the asylum region of Ticino and Central Switzerland, as the national government writes further.
The special Les Verrières asylum center is a very small center with increased security requirements. According to the Federal Council, the annual operating costs per bed are therefore around seven times higher than in the regular federal asylum centers. In return, security and coexistence in the other federal asylum centers will be improved.
This week, the new Minister of Justice Beat Jans announced tougher action against criminal asylum seekers. He appealed to the authorities to make full use of all criminal law options in such cases. Measures such as administrative detention or detention pending deportation are used too rarely today - even though these places are only used to around half capacity.
©Keystone/SDA
French 
English 
German 
Spanish 
Arabic