The Daily Mail reports on a push by Germany to get the EU to adopt an immigration policy, similar to the UK's system (still being blocked by legal hurdles), to send asylum seekers to Rwanda (or elsewhere). This is causing rifts in Germany's ruling coalition, with MPs from the Greens and the dominant SDP fighting against the proposals.

In Germany, as elsewhere, immigration is a contentious issue. Germany has accepted a lot of refugees in the last few years, for example:

• In 2015 and 2016, Germany accepted over one million refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as reported by The Center For Global Development. The report states that the refugees are thriving in Germany, with over half of them having found jobs, and "public support for immigration remains high", but that glosses over the issues. More than 50% of them working is not bad, bearing in mind that some are dependents (wives and children) or too old to work (it is actually illegal for anyone over 66 to hold a permanent job in Germany), but these are virtually all low paid jobs (in Germany you need qualifications to do almost every job, even plumbers and electricians, and foreign qualifications are not recognised), so they are not contributing much to tax revenues. Integrating these refugees into society was a rocky road, and there are still families in which only the children speak German. Public support for immigration is far from universal (it depends on where they settle), and there is a significant and vocal minority who believe immigrants are stealing jobs from locals.
• Euronews reports that one million Ukrainians have settled in Germany since Russia invaded Ukraine. Again, integration has been difficult, with many people needing to learn German and re-qualify for their professions (the article describes the case of Albina, who was a doctor in Crimea, and will need to study for many years to work as a doctor in Germany). Germans are especially sympathetic to the plight of Ukrainian refugees, but less so to immigrants and refugees from other places.

Some readers may be surprised to find out that Germany, which has a reputation as being fairly welcoming of immigrants and refugees, is leading the charge to keep them out of the EU. The stated reason is that they want to keep Europe's borders open, and are concerned that, without some action to limit immigration, some EU states, such as Hungary, may take unilateral and more drastic action to limit immigration. Germany's real concern with that is, if immigrants can't get into some other nations, more of them will come to Germany. Behind all of this is the widespread concern that the numbers of immigrants and refugees, already rising, will reach unmanageable levels in the near future, due to the effects of climate change and continuing wars. Mass migration is one of the things I have previously warned about here and here as consequences of climate change.

Although I wrote, here, a few days ago that most developed nations need more immigration to boost their economies, fill skill shortages and fund pension schemes, there is obviously a limit to the number of immigrants that any nation can absorb, and I therefore can't blame Germany for trying to impose some controls.