German states want to hold deportees in prisons again: report

December 20, 2018

Germany’s 16 states want to hold migrants slated for deportation in prisons, Die Welt reported on Thursday.

This was reportedly decided by the state premiers at a meeting in December.

A resolution called for a relaxation of rules that prohibit such practices, with the aim of housing deportation candidates in special wings of prisons separate from the prison’s criminal population.

In 2014, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that keeping those slated for deportation in regular prisons violated the EU Return Directive. Since then, such migrants have generally had to be accommodated in special facilities.

Read more: How do deportations work in Germany?

Police union in favor of plans

The chairman of the Federal Police Trade Union, Ernst Walter, told Die Welt he welcomed the plans.

“The only people who can be reliably deported are those who are already in deportation custody because thousands of people are evading deportation by temporary or permanent disappearance on the planned date of repatriation,” he was quoted as saying. Therefore the “increased provision of deportation detention is urgently necessary”.

02:34 mins.

Limited capacity

Current deportation facilities can hold fewer than 500 people, meaning holding all deportees is not currently possible.

“Since the urgently needed construction of new deportation detention facilities in the federal states is taking far too long, I welcome the intention of the prime ministers to place deportees in normal detention facilities in separate wings again,” Walter said.

Read more: Germany: More than half of deportees go missing

Half of deportations fail

Asylum seekers are issued with temporary permits while their applications are being considered. If they are rejected and not offered any other type of residency permit, they are obligated to leave the country by a set deadline of no longer than six months. If that deadline has passed, they may be forcibly deported to their country of origin.

People whose residency permits are not extended by authorities are also subject to deportation. Migrants convicted of a crime are also subject to deportation in most cases.

In the first half of 2018, nearly 24,000 people were ordered to be returned to their home country. About 11,000 deportations were completed.

aw/sms (AFP, dpa)

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan

By the planeload

On September 12, 2017, a flight left Germany’s Düsseldorf airport for Afghanistan, carrying 15 rejected asylum seekers in what is the first group deportation to the country since a deadly car bomb blast near the German embassy in Kabul in late May. The opposition Greens and Left party slammed the resumption of deportations to Afghanistan as “cynical.”

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan

Fighting for a chance

In March 2017, high school students in Cottbus made headlines with a campaign to save three Afghan classmates from deportation. They demonstrated, collected signatures for a petition and raised money for an attorney to contest the teens’ asylum rejections – safe in the knowledge that their friends, among them Wali (above), can not be deported as long as proceedings continue.

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan

‘Kabul is not safe’

“Headed toward deadly peril,” this sign reads at a demonstration in Munich airport in February. Protesters often show up at German airports where the deportations take place. Several collective deportations left Germany in December 2016, and between January and May 2017. Protesters believe that Afghanistan is too dangerous for refugees to return.

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan

From Würzburg to Kabul

Badam Haidari, in his mid-30s, spent seven years in Germany before he was deported to Afghanistan in January 2017. He had previously worked for USAID in Afghanistan and fled the Taliban, whom he still fears years later – hoping that he will be able to return to Germany after all.

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan

Persecuted minorities

In January of the same year, officials deported Afghan Hindu Samir Narang from Hamburg, where he had lived with his family for four years. Afghanistan, the young man told German public radio, “is not safe.” Minorities from Afghanistan who return because asylum is denied face religious persecution in the Muslim country. Deportation to Afghanistan is “life-threatening” to Samir, says change.org.

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan

Reluctant returnees

Rejected asylum seekers deported from Germany to Kabul, with 20 euros in their pockets from the German authorities to tide them over at the start, can turn to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for assistance. Funded by the German Foreign Office, members of the IPSO international psychosocial organization counsel the returnees.

Author: Dagmar Breitenbach