Swiss vote for tougher asylum laws amid spike in refugee numbers

Swiss voters have overwhelmingly backed government moves to tighten asylum restrictions, amid a spike in the number of refugees in the country.

Switzerland's number of refugees, relative to its population, has been double the European average, and asylum applications are at their highest level in a decade.

The referendum was sparked by human rights activists who had hoped the vote would reject the laws.

Instead, almost 80 per cent of voters gave a green light to the tougher laws.

People can no longer seek asylum through Swiss embassies, and military desertion is no longer a valid reason to be granted asylum.

Opponents of the tightened laws have called the measures "inhumane".

Human rights advocates shocked by scale of defeat

"The referendum is a disaster for asylum seekers and refugees and leaves no winners," the committee that had requested the vote on the changes said in a statement, hailing the "minority of the population that still has a conscience".

Manon Schick, the head of Amnesty International's Switzerland section, also lamented the "very, very high" percentage of Swiss who had voted in favour of the revision.

"We knew in advance that we would lose," she said, pointing out that the Swiss have repeatedly voted to tighten their asylum law since it went into effect in 1981.

"But that it was this bad was very disappointing."

But Celine Amandruz of the populist Swiss People's Party welcomed the strong support for the tougher law, insisting that nine out of 10 people who seek refuge in the wealthy country did so "for economic reasons".

"There is clearly a need to change this system," she said.

Deserters no longer allowed to apply for asylum

One of the most controversial revisions was the removal of military desertion as a valid reason for asylum.

That has been the key reason cited by Eritreans, who accounted for most applications to Switzerland last year and whose country imposes unlimited and under-paid military service on all able-bodied men and women.

Swiss justice minister Simonetta Sommaruga has insisted that the changes largely benefit the asylum seekers themselves, highlighting especially the efforts to speed up the application process.

The revision also removed the possibility - which had been unique in Europe - to apply for asylum from Swiss embassies.

Opponents of the laws say it means people unable to make the often dangerous journey from their country to Switzerland would remain without help.

The rejigged asylum law also clears the way for the creation of special centres for asylum seekers considered to be trouble-makers and limits the right to family reunification to spouses and children.

Spike in asylum seeker numbers

Switzerland currently counts some 48,000 people in the process of seeking asylum, including 28,631 who arrived in 2012.

The surge, attributed in part to the Arab Spring uprisings, marks the highest number since the height of the Balkans war in 1999, when nearly 48,000 people sought refuge in the country.

Switzerland counts one asylum seeker for every 332 inhabitants, trailing only Malta, Sweden and Luxembourg, and ranking far above the European average of one asylum seeker for every 625 inhabitants.

Besides the asylum law, the Swiss also voted on a series of other national, regional and local issues on Sunday.

Among them was an initiative for the people to elect their government directly instead of it being chosen by parliament. That was rejected by an overwhelming 76.3 per cent of Swiss voters.

Other votes included one in Zurich, where voters embraced a bid to impose tougher measures against hooliganism.

Only 39 per cent of the 5.2 million people eligible to vote cast their ballot, but low turnout is not uncommon in Switzerland, which hosts numerous popular votes each year.

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Finally, some realism in the GOP

Seventy House Republicans are planning a politically risky showdown with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to try to force additional debate on an immigration bill they say will mean amnesty for illegal immigrants and have dire consequences for the country.

The 70 members are petitioning for a special Republican conference meeting on the bill, a “highly unusual” move to go head-to-head with the speaker, according to Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Steve King (Iowa) and Louie Gohmert (Texas), who are serving as spokespersons for the group.

Bachmann, King and Gohmert told TheBlaze the group is invoking the Hastert Rule: requiring support from a majority of the majority to bring a bill forward.

The petition is expected to go to the House leadership on Friday, but it’s possible some signatories might remove their names due to political risk, or that Boehner could head off the challenge by striking a deal. Going against leadership in such a way could have harsh political consequences for the signatories, including retaliation such as permanently getting passed over for chairmanship positions.

A Boehner spokesman did not comment on the letter.

Boehner is on a tight schedule for getting immigration reform passed in the House, predicting this week that Congress could finalize a bill for President Barack Obama’s signature by the end of the year. Any major challenge could ignite pushback from the American public that could force lawmakers to scrap the bill, as happened in the 2007 immigration effort.

The three representatives told TheBlaze that more than half of the Republicans in the House were elected after 2007, and have no concept of how strongly the public opposed the bill.

In an interview with World Net Daily this week, Bachmann predicted that if the immigration bill becomes law, “the whole political system will change.”

“This is President Obama’s number one political agenda item because he knows we will never again have a Republican president, ever, if amnesty goes into effect. We will perpetually have a progressive, liberal president, probably a Democrat, and we will probably see the House of Representatives go into Democrat hands and the Senate will stay in Democrat hands,” Bachmann said.

She also said that if it passes, the bill will create a permanent progressive class.

“That’s what’s at risk right now. It may sound melodramatic, I don’t mean it that way, but this is that big and that important,” Bachmann said.

UPDATE: House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday he doesn’t “intend” to push an immigration bill that violates Republican Party “principles.”

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