Marieluise Beck (born 25 June 1952) is a German politician who served as member of the Alliance '90/The Greens group in the Bundestag until 2017. She was also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Education Beck studied history and sociology in Bielefeld and Heidelberg. Beck also studied in the United States as a Youth for Understanding exchange student in 1967–1968. She is a 1968 graduate of Quincy High School (Quincy, Michigan). Political career Early political activities Beck was among the founding members of the German Green party, Alliance '90/The Greens. In 1983 she was elected to the German Bundestag and in the first electoral term in which the Greens were represented in Parliament she was one of the spokespersons of the parliamentary group, together with Petra Kelly and Otto Schily. That year, Beck went on a trip to Washington, D.C. with Kelly and Gert Bastian to discuss the NATO Double-Track Decision. In 1984, along with Kelly and Schily, she withdrew her candidacy for the party's parliamentary leadership when a majority of the party's legislators nominated an all-female slate headed by Antje Vollmer in an unexpected move. She again served as a Member of the German Bundestag in the following electoral term from 1987 to 1990. After serving as a member of the Parliament of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen from 1991 to 1994, Beck was re-elected to the German Bundestag and has been a Member ever since. Member of the German government Under chancellor Gerhard Schröder between 1998 and 2005, Beck served as the government's Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration. From 2002, she was also State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, led by Renate Schmidt. In this capacity, she initiated a campaign against a planned headscarf ban for Muslim teachers, convening politicians from across the party spectrum, scientists and leaders from the church and media, including Rita Süssmuth, Renate Künast, Claudia Roth, Katja Riemann and Renan Demirkan. Activities in foreign policy and human rights Since 2005, Beck has been member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs at the German parliament, where she focuses as the spokesperson on Eastern European affairs for the Green Party's parliamentary group on matters concerning Russia, Belarus and Western Balkan countries. She serves as the chairperson of the German-Bosnian Parliamentary Friendship Group and as a member of the German-Ukrainian and German-South