The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) is trying to cope with the high number of asylum applications. The actual capacity limit has apparently been exceeded.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) appears to have reached its limits in view of the increasing number of accesses. According to information from WDR and NDR The authority is apparently prepared to only process around 230,000 asylum applications this year – that is, as many as in the whole of 2022.
However, the previous year’s value has already been exceeded, as the BAMF announced on Monday. According to this, more than 251,000 initial and follow-up applications were submitted by the end of September alone. During 2023, most applicants will come from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey.
More massive Overtime requirement
According to the research, the ongoing operations of the BAMF are ensured primarily by redeploying staff to the asylum area. Internally, according to the information, there is talk of a “forceful effort”. Some people speak more drastically of the authority’s “flooding”. According to official information from the BAMF, the number of overtime hours this year is currently around 200,000 – in the entire calendar year of 2022 it was only slightly more at 230,000.
Government circles are now expecting well over 300,000 asylum applications by the end of the year. At the BAMF, the management is said to have worked out different scenarios in the spring – in order to be able to deal with very high access numbers as best as possible.
The previous maximum value will probably not be reached
An internal scenario is said to have not ruled out the number of more than 400,000 possible asylum applications for 2023. For comparison: At the height of the so-called migration crisis in 2015 and 2016, around 480,000 and then almost 750,000 asylum applications were submitted to the BAMF in the first year – the highest value to date.
The authority, headquartered in Nuremberg, is central to dealing with the high number of people seeking protection. It is considered a bottleneck in the system because it determines whether an asylum application is accepted or rejected.
Neither the federal government nor German authorities issue official forecasts for the total number of asylum arrivals – even if these could help the federal states or municipalities to plan capacities for accommodation and care as far-sightedly as possible.
The BAMF stopped such publications during the 2015/2016 refugee crisis because developments often happened quickly and the forecasts were ultimately very inaccurate.
Redeployments and use of temporary workers
As the Federal Office reported upon request, they responded “promptly” to increasing numbers in the second half of 2022: Internally, for example, they “re-prioritized” as part of the “flexible” authority concept, for example, employees were withdrawn from other areas and in the asylum area used.
There were also new hires and the use of temporary workers. The BAMF explained that the staff in the area of the so-called asylum procedure secretariats has been increased by around 25 percent in order to enable quick applications.
Processing time not yet increased significantly
The authority was apparently able to avert an overload for the time being: Despite the increased number of asylum requests and applications, the Federal Office announced that the time period from the registration of an asylum seeker after entry to the submission of the application was initially reduced to around 19 days.
Although this is longer than in June 2022, it is significantly shorter than the 34.7 days that lay between registration and the submission of an asylum application at the end of 2022, when the situation first came to a head. In view of the current situation, the BAMF cautiously stated: “Further developments will be closely monitored.”
Actually, asylum seekers should only leave the initial reception centers of the federal states after submitting their application and be distributed among the municipalities. But that no longer works because the capacities of several federal states have been exhausted – which in turn is also due to the tense situation on the housing market. Due to travel times and deliveries, additional days or weeks pass before the application is submitted.
Lower Saxony declared in mid-September that the state reception authority was “foreseeably reaching its capacity limit”. According to the Interior Ministry in Hanover, asylum seekers would be “distributed to the municipalities in Lower Saxony before the hearing, if necessary, even before the application is submitted.”
Already in September, around half of the newly arriving asylum seekers were distributed among the municipalities without prior hearings. It was said that an extra load that would then be necessary would “fundamentally lead to longer asylum procedures.”
Bavarian Asylum accommodation 96 percent occupied in mid-September
According to the Interior Ministry in Munich, the Bavarian asylum accommodations were 96 percent full in mid-September: “In exceptional cases, it can happen that the asylum seekers are distributed from the ‘anchors’, even if all the steps at the BAMF have not yet been completed.” In so-called anchor facilities, the federal and state governments try to bundle the processes relating to asylum. Due to the high number of entries, the duration of the procedure at the BAMF would also be extended, the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior said.
When asked recently, Saxony’s Interior Ministry spoke of a “tense” situation regarding the capacities of the state’s reception facilities. One tries to “avoid” distribution before the application is submitted – otherwise it would lead to a “not inconsiderable additional time and personnel effort, combined with significant financial consequences”.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the Ministry of Migration explained that high numbers of arrivals can lead to “asylum seekers being distributed somewhat more quickly among the municipalities” – in this case, people are primarily selected who would have a good chance of staying anyway, such as families with underage children.