[Continuities and changes in Swiss migration policy]

"In May 1991 the Swiss Federal Government...submitted to the Parliament some proposals aiming at reshaping the immigration policy. In this article, we give an overview of the current re-organisation of policy, we analyse the underlying logic of the adopted measures as well as their possible consequences, and we try to show how the policy towards foreigners interferes with the policy towards refugees and asylum-seekers. We describe the political and economic motivations behind the changes in policy.... We show how immigration policy and asylum policy have become gradually incompatible.... The contradiction is obvious in three aspects of the current policy: the ethnic selection, the selection according to occupations, and the legitimation of the selection." (SUMMARY IN ENG)