In the discussion about deportations to Iran, Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann sees the federal government as responsible for the recently criticized political harshness. According to the constitutional order, only the federal government is responsible for decisions on asylum applications, more precisely the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf), which reports to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. This will examine each individual case even after the deportation stop expires. “I cannot ignore all the federal government’s decisions,” Herrmann told the SZ.
After an intensive individual case review of many cases, the Bamf has currently come to the conclusion that these people would not be at risk of persecution if they returned to their homeland and would therefore have to leave Germany again. In 2023, the Bamf rejected 2,400 applications for protection across Germany with around 6,900 decisions, and in the current year around 600 with around 1,300 decisions. The Federal Ministers of the Interior and Foreign Affairs bear political responsibility for this, said Herrmann.
The minister was recently criticized by refugee associations because he did not campaign for an extension of the ban on deportations to Iran. After the death of Jina Mahsa Amini and the subsequent mass protests in Iran in September 2022, Herrmann announced that he would no longer send refugees back to the autocratic country until further notice. Between October 2022 and December 2023, the German federal states jointly decided to stop deportations. Exceptions only applied to criminals. This agreement was not extended, so deportations to Iran have increased again since January. According to the Interior Ministry, Bavaria has already sent four people back to Tehran this year, two of whom had committed criminal offenses.
Two other cases of Iranians recently caused a stir, one of whom, according to a pastor, was involved in the Protestant church and the other, according to the Bavarian refugee association, had already converted to Christianity. The first, a 34-year-old Amazon warehouse worker, initially avoided deportation by escaping the plane. The other, an Iranian from Middle Franconia who arrived in 2015, is currently being held in deportation detention in Hof.
The human rights situation in Iran has not improved since the mass protests. The mullahs’ regime continues to arbitrarily arrest people, torture in prisons and, according to the Iran Human Rights organization, more than 800 executions in 2023. The Federal Ministry of the Interior would therefore support an extension of the deportation stop, it said at the SZ’s request. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has great respect for the courage of the people in Iran who stand up for freedom and human rights.
Herrmann wants to examine a case again: “I take it seriously, it will be presented to me”
However, the federal states allowed the deportation ban to expire. “A deportation stop makes sense and is necessary when I am confronted with a completely new situation,” says Interior Minister Herrmann. In 2022, the aim was to prevent refugees whose application for protection had perhaps already been decided on two years ago from being “blindly” deported without further examination. Refugees from Iran now have the opportunity to have their situation checked by the Bamf in a follow-up application. However, a whole series of these applications were rejected, including in the specific case of the Iranian from Middle Franconia. “There is obviously a situation in Iran where not everyone is generally at risk,” said Herrmann. Nevertheless, he wanted to take another look at the specific case and check whether the man was actually a Christian. “I take this seriously, it will be presented to me.”
However, the minister believes it makes sense in principle for the federal government and not the states to decide on the difficult question of whether there is political persecution in another state or whether there are dangers to life and limb. The federal government is the authority that has a close global network of embassies and the associated knowledge and is also a member of international organizations such as the UN. The Bamf bases its decisions on a wide variety of sources on the situation in Iran.
However, deportations in Iran are likely to become difficult in the near future for practical reasons. Due to the critical security situation, Lufthansa was the first airline to cancel its daily flight from Frankfurt to Tehran until April 13th. The background is Iran’s recent threats against Israel in the Middle East conflict.