How to integrate undocumented migrants? An interview with Zurich’s Head of Integration Office

October 21, 2022

Zurich has a plan: the entire population should benefit equally from the city’s offers and services. And that includes migrants and refugees. Achieving this requires providing information in multiple languages ​​and formats, promoting diversity, designing and delivering accessible services, and focusing on vulnerable groups.

On November 16th and 17th, Zurich will take part in the 10th Integrating Cities Conference, the world’s largest summit on migration and integration in Europe’s cities. The event will bring together politicians and urban experts, EU Member States, representatives of the European Parliament and European Commission, as well as NGOs, migrant groups, activists and academics.

As a teaser for the conference – and to give you another reason to register for it – we interviewed Christof Meier, Head of Integration Zurich office. He explains how the Swiss city has dealt with the influx of Ukrainian refugees and talks about Zurich’s innovative approach to undocumented migrants.

How is Zurich dealing with the flow of refugees from Ukraine? How does the city take care of the reception of the refugees and promote their integration at the local level?

The weeks following the arrival of the first refugees from Ukraine were very special, but also chaotic. A lot was improvised and situations such as late-evening phone calls were usually successfully mastered. However, there are still 200 other people at the station who still need accommodation.

Most of the problems we faced stemmed from almost everything that happened outside of the city’s well-implemented structures. Typically, asylum seekers and refugees first go to a national center and then to local government facilities. The municipal authorities only take care of asylum seekers and refugees at a later point in time.

Given that Ukrainians can enter Switzerland without a visa and many private individuals have offered them admission, the process spiraled out of control. At one point we knew that there were around 2,000 Ukrainian refugees in our city, but we had no further information about them; we didn’t know who they were or where they were.

Today things are better organized and we are ready to take in more Ukrainians if they arrive before winter. But that doesn’t mean that there are good answers to all important questions. One of the main problems is how refugees from Ukraine are treated differently compared to all other asylum seekers and refugees. Another concern concerns the role of host families.

The local population showed great solidarity; The majority of Ukrainian refugees are already living with host families. This model has great potential; It can be reproduced in the future to accommodate other refugees. However, the state does not yet know how best to deal with host families who take in refugees. We should not forget that the state is always in charge.

Zurich is known for its work with undocumented people. The city is also taking part in an associated workshop at the 10th Integrating Cities Conference. What distinguishes Zurich in this area?

There is no secret – and many things are not as we would like them to be. What we do is very simple and based on integration policy principles. As a city, we don’t care that much about immigration and emigration: we have the population we have. In addition, we have some responsibilities for everyone living in “our territory”, we must guarantee them all basic rights as much as possible. In other words, if an undocumented person lives in our city, he or she is part of the population. That’s the starting point.

Zurich has 440,000 inhabitants; We estimate that around 10,000 of them are so-called undocumented migrants. Most of them have never been registered. The typical undocumented migrant in Zurich might be a woman from a Latin American country who came and stayed as a tourist. She works illegally in a household, lives in poor conditions and is constantly afraid of being stopped by the police. Of course, we are working to change the current laws and make it easier for undocumented migrants to legalize their status. But as a city we are very limited in what we can do.

That’s why we try to do what we can, and that’s more than meets the eye. We grant access to city services, access to education, access to health care and access to society. In this context we have some interesting projects and activities that we will present in the workshop of the conference. I will talk about that, including the idea of ​​a Zurich City Card.

How important is an event like the Integrating Cities Conference for shaping Zurich’s migration policy?

International conferences are relevant because they offer an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences. What’s happening in one city may be very different from another, but there are common challenges and it’s often very helpful to know what’s going on elsewhere. The participants have many interesting insights and many of them share similar ideas about the future of cities. Sometimes it just helps to know that others are having similar problems. I usually come back from international conferences with at least two or three highlights that help me in my daily work at home.