German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced in the fall that Germany had to begin deporting “on a large scale” asylum seekers whose requests have been rejected, that is, people who continue to reside in the country despite not having the right. Just over two months later, the Bundestag approved the law this Thursday that puts it into practice. Those who remain in an irregular situation will be able to be deported more quickly in Germany, as the process is simplified and stricter rules come into force.
The coalition government of social democrats, greens and liberals thus responds to the constant increase in asylum seekers, to the concern about irregular immigration shown by Germans in surveys and to the demands of local authorities, who have been protesting for months about the overload that suffer and the tightness of the funds available to them. The decision is also not unrelated to the growing popularity of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has managed to place itself in second place in voting intentions with a harsh anti-immigration speech.
The developments are striking, but their real effect on the number of deportations seems limited and does not respond to that “large scale” that the chancellor announced, as recognized by the bill itself. The period of preventive detention will increase from 10 to 28 days; The authorities will stop announcing repatriations – except in the case of families with children under 12 years of age – as is the case now, and the police will be able to search homes or rooms in immigrant accommodation centers in search of people with an expulsion order. or documents that can prove your identity and nationality. Agents will also be able to pick them up at night if the flight is scheduled early in the morning.
The objective is to reduce the failure rate that planned returns have been registering in recent years. Approximately two thirds are never produced. In 2023, 31,770 repatriations could not be carried out, for various reasons: the cancellation of deportation flights, the impossibility of finding or identifying those affected, the refusal of the destination country to accept them or for medical reasons.
The so-called Repatriation Improvement Law aims to simplify the process so that people who really have the right to protection can benefit from public resources, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said during the vote in Parliament. “Anyone who does not have the right to stay in Germany must leave the country,” she said. The new law, with its “clear rules,” “will effectively prevent people from fleeing and thwarting deportation,” added the social democrat. Faeser assured that last year expulsions increased by 27% compared to 2022, but that the number is still insufficient.
The CDU votes against
The law passed with the votes in favor of almost all the deputies of the coalition parties. The Christian Democratic opposition of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU and the far-right AfD have voted against it because they consider that the law does not go far enough. Some Green deputies have not voted in favor either, but for the opposite reason: for them the tightening of immigration policy goes too far. The norm was the subject of intense discussions at the last congress of the environmental party, with many members who shared the concerns of human rights defense organizations.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, around 242,642 people had to leave the country at the end of December because their asylum application has been rejected. But in reality only a small part is really threatened with expulsion because the majority enjoy what is known as “tolerance status.” These are people who cannot be deported because they lack an identification document, are sick, participate in a vocational training program or have a minor child who does have a residence permit. In total, the bill itself quantifies around 600 extra returns per year that the new measures will allow.
The shift in the German Government’s immigration policy materializes just a week after it became known that the AfD met secretly with neo-Nazis to discuss a massive deportation plan that goes far beyond rejected asylum seekers and aims to expel from the country also to citizens with German passports who are not considered “well integrated.” The news, revealed by the research portal Correctivhas sparked a protest movement in cities across the country, with daily demonstrations against the extreme right and in favor of democracy.
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