"The previous restrictions on the allocation of refugees and the immigration freeze in place since October 2017 have helped us to stabilize the systems, but a longer period of respite is needed to ensure social peace and avoid overloading the systems," was the tenor of the letter with which Mayor Frank Klingebiel once again addressed Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Daniela Behrens. The good news came yesterday: the Minister of the Interior shares this assessment and has limited the allocation of refugees to Salzgitter to a maximum of 200 people for another year until September 30, 2026.
Klingebiel explains why it is so important to extend the allocation limit: "Many of the refugees from Syria and Ukraine have now decided to stay in Salzgitter permanently and not return to their home countries, partly due to the unresolved situation in their home countries. This has resulted in different integration requirements than two or three years ago - it is no longer just a question of reception and initial care, but of permanent integration into Salzgitter's urban society - but the challenges for the existing systems and the city still exist and are becoming more permanent. This dramatic situation is exacerbated by the enormous and rapid influx of Eastern Europeans, particularly from Bulgaria and Romania, into our city."
The systems in Salzgitter, in particular daycare centers and schools, but also the labor market, are still under great strain and the desired integration of the people who have come to us is only possible if these systems are not further overloaded. The same also applies to the residential areas in which the people seeking protection are housed.
In addition to the extension of the allocation limit, Klingebiel is also grateful for the financial support provided by the state through the integration fund of around 35 million euros and the 50 million euros in structural aid, most of which has gone towards education infrastructure. "Renovation and construction measures in the daycare and school sector, language support, neighborhood and office work, intensification of school social work, employment promotion and strengthening of the municipal law enforcement service - all of this could only be implemented with proportional financial support from the state."
However, Klingebiel makes it clear that financial support from the federal government and the state of Lower Saxony will also be necessary in the future. "Integration is and remains a permanent Herculean task! A Herculean task that must be accomplished by the municipalities! And this will only succeed if this challenge for the cities and municipalities is recognized by the state and federal government and accompanied by accompanying measures!"
Background:
In October 2017, on the urgent initiative of Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel, the state government of Lower Saxony - for the first time and unique in Germany at that time - issued an allocation stop for refugees and an immigration stop for recognized refugees (so-called negative residency requirement) in Salzgitter.
These measures were absolutely necessary in order to give the city of Salzgitter some breathing space in the reception and integration of refugees and to be able to cope with the enormous challenges - such as accommodation, education and integration - of the high number of recognized refugees who have already moved to Salzgitter and to keep the city society together. The systems in Salzgitter, particularly in terms of language support, childcare, nurseries and schools, had reached their limits at the time due to the rapid influx of recognized refugees.
Since then, with the help of the state of Lower Saxony (ongoing funding of around 5 million/year since 2017 from the integration fund of the state of Lower Saxony and one-off structural aid from the state of Lower Saxony in the amount of €50 million for Salzgitter), many necessary integration measures have been implemented in Salzgitter - especially in the expansion and operation of additional daycare centers and schools.
In the wake of Russia's inconceivable war of aggression against Ukraine, Salzgitter has provided protection, accommodation and care to around 1,200 displaced Ukrainians - mainly women with children - as part of emergency aid since the start of the war on 24 February 2022, despite a freeze on allocations and immigration for humanitarian reasons.
In August 2022, when the federal and state governments established a regulated distribution system for refugees and displaced persons, the allocation freeze for Salzgitter that had been in place since October 2017 was lifted by the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and Sport. The request made by Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel to Boris Pistorius, then Minister of the Interior of Lower Saxony, in October 2022 did not lead to any other decision, although Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel had urgently pointed out the dramatic situation that still existed in Salzgitter. On 01.05.2023, Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel drew the attention of the new Lower Saxony Interior Minister Daniela Behrens to the continuing dramatic situation in Salzgitter and therefore requested an exception to the refugee allocation according to the EASY system in several discussions, taking into account her great reception performance from the refugee crisis 2015 to 2017 and the Ukraine war since 24.02.2022. On 19.09.2023, Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel, with the active support of MP Stefan Klein, reached an agreement with Interior Minister Daniela Behrens on the above-mentioned temporary, situation-adapted allocation and distribution of refugees. With the decree of 16.10.2024 and the current decree of 27.10.2025, the allocation limit was extended until 30.09.2026.