Asylum-Seekers In Germany Could Lose Right To Remain If They Hide Their Identity

Horst Seehofer

Asylum-seekers who seek to hide their identity or refuse to cooperate in obtaining new documents from their home could lose their right to remain in Germany under leaked details of a new draft law.

The proposals also include changes to the law to allow migrants awaiting deportation to be held in regular prisons, according to details leaked to Bild newspaper.

There are concerns the proposed changes could affect Syrian migrants who fled the Assad regime. Human rights activists have warned their families could be in danger if they request new identity documents from embassies controlled by the regime.

The leaked details emerged come as the German parliament voted on Friday to designate Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Georgia as “safe countries” — meaning their citizens will no longer be considered eligible for asylum in Germany.

The proposed new law is the brainchild of Horst Seehofer, the interior minister who has repeatedly clashed with Angela Merkel over refugee policy.

The proposed law is not aimed at those granted full asylum as refugees, but at those who are given temporary leave to remain.

Public anger has been growing over repeated government failures to deport migrants who have been refused asylum.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants are allowed to stay in Germany on a temporary basis. Often it is because it is not safe for them to return to their home countries, but in some cases they cannot be deported because they do not have the necessary paperwork.

The most notorious case is Anis Amri, who drove a lorry into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin in 2016, killing 12 people. Amri had been ordered to be deported, but his native Tunisia would not accept him because he had no valid identity papers.

Under the proposed new law, those who do not help authorities find new their ID papers would lose the temporary right to remain and face detention until they could be deported.

German authorities already require Syrians to obtain new passports from embassies controlled by the Assad regime, despite warnings from human rights groups that this could place their relatives in Syria at risk of reprisals.

The proposed law extends the maximum period migrants could be held before deportation to six months.

It also makes it possible for them to be held in special sections of regular prisons because of a shortage of deportation centres, though it is not clear if this would be possible as the European court has previously held the practice to be against European Union regulations.

It is not clear whether Mr Seehofer will be able to secure the backing of the coalition government for the proposed changes. Mrs Merkel’s main coalition partners, the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD), have opposed previous attempts by the interior minister to toughen the law.

“It would be better to analyze the current problems with implementing the law and fix them, rather than create yet more new regulations,” Burkhard Lischka, a senior SPD MP told Bild.


(The Telegraph)



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