In view of the sharp increase in the number of refugees and overburdened municipalities, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) called for rejected asylum seekers to be deported “on a large scale” in the fall. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) then presented a bill “to improve repatriation,” which the Bundestag will vote on on Thursday.
According to Faeser, the planned measures for faster returns are necessary in order to maintain social acceptance for the protection of refugees. “With our legislative package, we are ensuring that people without the right to stay have to leave our country more quickly,” said the SPD politician to the “Rheinische Post” (Thursday). A number of innovations will prevent people from going into hiding before they can be deported.
The co-chair of the Green Youth, Katharina Stolla, warned against this: “The deportation law means an incredible disenfranchisement of people who actually urgently need protection,” she told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” (Thursday). From their point of view, the federal government is being driven by the right.
The Green European Parliamentarian Erik Marquardt had already questioned the draft law on Wednesday. The reason for this was several reports from lawyers who fear that sea rescuers and other people who help refugees cross a border free of charge could be prosecuted in the future. This legal system follows “a right-wing agenda that can criminalize humanitarian aid.” This is a completely wrong signal, especially in times like these. Marquardt called on his party to renegotiate the law.
There were also critical words from the Union on Wednesday. “The Greens are writing an obligation into the law to inform lawyers about the measures before they are taken into custody to leave the country – but this means that those who are obliged to leave the country will be out of the woods if they are to be taken into custody,” said the Union parliamentary group’s domestic policy spokesman, Alexander Throm (CDU). The repatriation improvement law is in reality a “repatriation deterioration law”.
Why deportations have been so difficult so far and what the plans could bring – an overview:
According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, 242,642 people were required to leave the country at the end of December. However, 193,972 of them had a toleration permit to remain in Germany. This means that deportation was temporarily suspended in four out of five cases. Reasons could be the security situation in the country of origin, children with a residence permit, qualified vocational training that has begun, illness or the lack of passport and travel documents.
According to the Interior Ministry, 16,430 people were deported last year. This was 27 percent more than in 2022. At that time there were 12,945 deportations – eight percent more than the year before.
Last year, 31,770 planned deportations failed. This means that two thirds of the planned returns were not successful. Reasons included canceled deportation flights, foreigners required to leave the country could not be found, the destination country refused to accept them or medical problems.
Search options for the police are being expanded. On the one hand, this applies to the search for documents and data on the identity of the person concerned, for example in order to determine their home country. On the other hand, officials in shared accommodation should in future also be allowed to search rooms other than the deportee’s room. From now on, it should also be possible to pick up those affected at night, for example if a deportation flight organized by another country takes off early in the morning.
The maximum duration of detention on departure is to be extended from the current ten to 28 days. This gives authorities more time to prepare for a deportation and is intended to prevent the person being deported from going into hiding. In addition, an independent reason for detention is created for violations of entry and residence bans. This applies to foreigners who initially entered Germany legally and were later required to leave. In addition, the possibility of so-called cooperative detention will be extended to cases in which a foreigner fails to provide information to clarify his or her nationality.
The Residence Act is intended to create regulations that make their expulsion easier. In the future, there will be a “particularly serious interest in deportation” if there has been a conviction for smuggling for at least one year. Penalties for smugglers should also be generally tightened.
The original draft law stipulated that a new expulsion offense should be created for foreign members of gangs or criminal clans – and that this should also apply “regardless of a criminal conviction”. This is unlikely to happen now. An amendment proposed by the traffic light parties is primarily aimed at intensive offenders who have been convicted “multiple times” within a year.
According to the “Traffic Light” change plans, it is expressly stated that an anti-Semitic motive for an act established in a judgment gives rise to a serious interest in deportation. This also applies to racist, xenophobic, gender-specific or sexual orientation motives.
The Interior Ministry also does not expect an exponential increase in deportations: “It is assumed that the tightening of the obligation to leave the country will increase the number of deportations by around 600 (five percent),” says the draft law. And the federal government is also aware that stricter deportation laws are only one side of the coin: deportations are not possible without countries of origin that are willing to accept them.
