The German government has agreed with representatives of the states on a plan to implement the deportation program
As "Russkaya Germaniya" notes, failed refugees whose applications for political asylum in Germany were rejected must leave the country as quickly as possible. In practice, this process is not well-organized and for various reasons drags on for many months, if not years.
In a recent speech before representatives of the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel clearly outlined the priorities of Germany's current immigration policy: "The most important test in the near future is deportation, deportation, and once again deportation."
To achieve these goals, the federal government has agreed with representatives of the sixteen states on a specific plan to implement the deportation program. It includes 16 points designed to simplify and facilitate the problem of deporting refugees for regional authorities.
First and foremost, the plan provides for the creation of a single center to support the deportation of refugees (Zentrum zur Unterstützung der Rückkehr, ZUR). Such a center, subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, will be established in the coming months in Berlin. Its staff will coordinate deportations and collect missing documents.
At the same time, the creation of federal deportation centers will begin, where individuals who have not been granted asylum and are preparing for deportation will be housed in the last days and weeks of their stay on German soil. Opening such centers will take longer than the coordination service in Berlin. This is a long-term plan.
In response to the attack on the Christmas market in Berlin, where on December 19 last year 12 people died and 55 were injured, the authorities are preparing to ease the procedure for deportation arrest, i.e., placing in custody those foreign citizens who, in the opinion of law enforcement agencies, may pose a significant threat to society. The powers of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF) to establish the identity of asylum seekers will be expanded. In particular, BAMF employees will gain the right to access the mobile phones and SIM cards of asylum seekers if officials suspect the information provided is unreliable. Today, such a right to additional checks is available to employees of the Foreigners' Offices (Ausländerbehörde or Ausländeramt).
Also, the procedure for medical examination of foreigners not recognized as refugees should be rationalized and accelerated, during which doctors determine whether a person can be deported for health reasons. Today, doctors often delay the deportation of unrecognized refugees out of humanitarian considerations or by colluding with dishonest asylum seekers.
Finally, the federal government intends to encourage failed refugees to return to their homeland by increasing the amount of financial assistance to those immigrants who came to Germany to apply for asylum but changed their minds and are ready to voluntarily return to their homeland. The amount of financial assistance will depend on the speed of decision-making: the sooner a potential refugee wants to return home, the more support they will receive from the German authorities.
The agreement between the federation and representatives of the states is an important step towards normalizing the immigration crisis. Nevertheless, the agreements on the government plan do not mean the absence of contradictions on deportation issues. In particular, five federal states where representatives of the Social Democratic Party, the Left Party, or the Greens are in power – Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin, Bremen, Lower Saxony, and Rhineland-Palatinate – have suspended the deportation of refugees to Afghanistan since the beginning of February. This is the second country after Syria from which the most asylum seekers enter Germany.
Federal Minister of Internal Affairs Thomas de Maizière sees no reason why the deportation of Afghans to their homeland should not take place; representatives of the "red" and "green" states do not consider the situation in Afghanistan safe enough to send people there. Nevertheless, in mid-December last year and at the end of January this year, 60 Afghans were deported from Germany to their homeland.
This is an absolute record: over the past five years, the German authorities have managed to deport fewer citizens of this country to Afghanistan than in the two winter months of 2016-2017. In 2016, about 127,000 citizens of Afghanistan applied for political asylum in Germany.
After the record year 2015, about 280,000 people applied for asylum in Germany in 2016. During the same period, approximately 55,000 voluntarily left Germany for their countries of origin, and about 25,000 people were deported.