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![What is the immigration situation ACTUALLY in Switzerland 🇨🇭?
[Long format post - But the most detailed you’ll find on X]
This will contain a lot of nuance that most will never explain - also perspective from a Mixed Swiss (my father is Moroccan who married my Swiss mom).
My father actually studied in the USA in the early 80s. There would have been a good chance I was born an American if my mom decided to come to the west coast but he ultimately left for Switzerland where he married her then afterwards and worked his way up, learned the language and got a masters degree later on. This is not the typical route most Moroccan immigrants do in Switzerland. (There are only about 9‘000)
Historically (Post-WW2 - 1990) most immigrants in Switzerland were from neighboring countries (Italy, Germany, France). It was very rare for others to migrate to Switzerland(my great-great grandfather was a Swiss-German born in Germany). Some Brits, some Americans here and there but that was really the exception.
Immigration usually came in waves - when the train infrastructure needed to be built, we hired lots of Italians. You see a lot of 3rd or 4th generation Italians living in Switzerland these days, we have adopted a lot of Italian cuisine and some language traits („Ciao“ is a common way to greet these days even though we germanize it in writing). Italian is an official language in Switzerland so integration was not too hard. All our consumer products are labelled in 2-3 languages, official documents can be issued in Italian too.
In the 1990s because of the Yugoslavia war - many Serbs, Bosnians, Croats and Albanians (mostly from current day Kosovo) came in as refugees. Back then there were mixed feelings about taking them in. Balkans have a strong honor code and a sense of pride in their ethnicity and operate in clans, which is not part of our culture. (This was possibly shaped by the war as well) This is why there were often clashes between Balkans and non-Balkans or even in-between. Serbs and Bosnians were de-facto enemies and now they live among us. There were lots of fights at schools and complaints that Balkans are violent.
Albanians were not different - in fact they‘re even more distinguished because they‘re not slavic people. This caused the first set of problems and was a challenge to Swiss cohesion. For us Swiss the Balkans where either „Schippis“ (Slang term derived from the word „Shqipëria“ - Albania) or „Yugos“ and were seen as too tribal. There was often discrimination in job- or rent search if you had a name ending with -víc. Their facial features were prominent, some could hide it but their slavic last name always revealed their background.
Many of them, 2nd sometimes 3rd generation have integrated quite well into society after 2 decades since the war has concluded. You‘ll see lots of Albanian and Serbian/Bosnian/Croat names now in construction businesses and the finance/insurance sector. The parents pushed their kids to educate and build a career and speak the languages fluent. Intermarriage has become quite common too and Albanians & Ex-Yugoslavians have excelled in sports (Shaqiri, Xhaka in football, Bencic in Tennis)
If you go to present day Kosovo, you‘ll see lots of Swiss number plates - especially in Summer where they all spend summers.
BIG REMINDER: All these immigration waves happened BEFORE Switzerland joined Schengen in the late 2000s. This is when Switzerland controlled immigration on their own.
In 2005, Swiss voters decided to join the Schengen region, essentially abolishing border checks to EU and also abolishing the sovereignty on our immigration. This started a great wave of skilled German immigrants to essentially flood the labor market. (Cont) What is the immigration situation ACTUALLY in Switzerland 🇨🇭?
[Long format post - But the most detailed you’ll find on X]
This will contain a lot of nuance that most will never explain - also perspective from a Mixed Swiss (my father is Moroccan who married my Swiss mom).
My father actually studied in the USA in the early 80s. There would have been a good chance I was born an American if my mom decided to come to the west coast but he ultimately left for Switzerland where he married her then afterwards and worked his way up, learned the language and got a masters degree later on. This is not the typical route most Moroccan immigrants do in Switzerland. (There are only about 9‘000)
Historically (Post-WW2 - 1990) most immigrants in Switzerland were from neighboring countries (Italy, Germany, France). It was very rare for others to migrate to Switzerland(my great-great grandfather was a Swiss-German born in Germany). Some Brits, some Americans here and there but that was really the exception.
Immigration usually came in waves - when the train infrastructure needed to be built, we hired lots of Italians. You see a lot of 3rd or 4th generation Italians living in Switzerland these days, we have adopted a lot of Italian cuisine and some language traits („Ciao“ is a common way to greet these days even though we germanize it in writing). Italian is an official language in Switzerland so integration was not too hard. All our consumer products are labelled in 2-3 languages, official documents can be issued in Italian too.
In the 1990s because of the Yugoslavia war - many Serbs, Bosnians, Croats and Albanians (mostly from current day Kosovo) came in as refugees. Back then there were mixed feelings about taking them in. Balkans have a strong honor code and a sense of pride in their ethnicity and operate in clans, which is not part of our culture. (This was possibly shaped by the war as well) This is why there were often clashes between Balkans and non-Balkans or even in-between. Serbs and Bosnians were de-facto enemies and now they live among us. There were lots of fights at schools and complaints that Balkans are violent.
Albanians were not different - in fact they‘re even more distinguished because they‘re not slavic people. This caused the first set of problems and was a challenge to Swiss cohesion. For us Swiss the Balkans where either „Schippis“ (Slang term derived from the word „Shqipëria“ - Albania) or „Yugos“ and were seen as too tribal. There was often discrimination in job- or rent search if you had a name ending with -víc. Their facial features were prominent, some could hide it but their slavic last name always revealed their background.
Many of them, 2nd sometimes 3rd generation have integrated quite well into society after 2 decades since the war has concluded. You‘ll see lots of Albanian and Serbian/Bosnian/Croat names now in construction businesses and the finance/insurance sector. The parents pushed their kids to educate and build a career and speak the languages fluent. Intermarriage has become quite common too and Albanians & Ex-Yugoslavians have excelled in sports (Shaqiri, Xhaka in football, Bencic in Tennis)
If you go to present day Kosovo, you‘ll see lots of Swiss number plates - especially in Summer where they all spend summers.
BIG REMINDER: All these immigration waves happened BEFORE Switzerland joined Schengen in the late 2000s. This is when Switzerland controlled immigration on their own.
In 2005, Swiss voters decided to join the Schengen region, essentially abolishing border checks to EU and also abolishing the sovereignty on our immigration. This started a great wave of skilled German immigrants to essentially flood the labor market. (Cont)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg.com%2Fprofile_images%2F1696022344307802112%2Fe7kCimX9_400x400.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
Even though Germans are culturally close to Swiss, they‘re still very different in some ways - much more direct, demanding and their language use was seen as chauvinistic. Even Swiss media, called Germans to essentially STFU in one of a Blick am Abend issue when clashes were peak. There was a lot of resentment among the population towards Germans and it was manifested with aggressive car honking whenever there was a German number plate, slurs, „Scheiss Dütsche!“ etc Since most Germans refuse to speak Swiss German (we understand them perfectly because we use German in writing) the distance is still there - more so than with the Balkans because eventually they started to speak our language - integrating much more than Germans. To this day, this language „barrier“ has a certain resentment. The Germans came here to make big money with less taxes, that‘s why they came and they‘re educated too. That‘s why competition became greater now. Because of Schengen an EU citizen and a Swiss citizen are the same on the job market. Now to add to this - Switzerland didn‘t do any major infrastructure projects our highways were all built in the 60s & 80s but the population now started to accelerate. And things move slow here because people can veto literally anything. At Y2K we had 7.2mio people (it‘s >9mio in 2025) that‘s a huge strain to infrastructure, healthcare and housing. Job Recruiters had a golden age because they could literally get paid to hire anyone from the EU. With eastern & South Europe being more integrated into Western Europe, lots of Poles, Czech, Portuguese and Spanish citizens could now live and work in Switzerland. Currently lots of Romanians & Bulgarians come over and work here and it only increased. Also to add that foreigners are also entitled to benefits under certain conditions. Non-EU immigration has never been historically high. We never had colonies, were expansionist nor were a maritime country to have access outside Europe. Sub-Sahara African immigration was always low. The only non-EU countries that stands out where Sri Lankans & Eritreans due to refugee waves. (The latter I still don‘t know why). FINAL Swiss society has known immigration from its neighbours but because of our culture and the way things move - it‘s not meant to handle larger waves of immigration, especially from outside our neighbours. That’s why even our neighbours were reluctant to move in here pre-Schengen. We have little space to build and strong individual liberty that prevents reckless expansion. Most understand that this immigration acceleration is unsustainable long term. Also the ethnic Swiss population feels threatened that they lose their identity. The -vícs I mentioned earlier now often hold a Swiss passport these days and it‘s unclear whether they act in the interest of the local population because now they can vote. Some Christian orthodox others muslim - both foreign to Swiss culture. And leftist/feminist movements have achieved that ethnic Swiss woman choose career and individual freedom over family life. No wonder if you look how it is promoted here. If we continue like this- rent situation will look similar to Singapore and a gridlocked infrastructure but with a lack of identity (Singapore at least takes care of their identity). If we decide to import Sub-Sahara Africans and Indians en mass then it will be over definitely.


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