Endangerment: Why the deportation plans can hardly be kept

The coalition wants to facilitate regular migration to Germany and at the same time launch a “repatriation offensive”. Above all, those who are at risk should leave the country. But fewer and fewer are eligible for deportation.

Horst Seehofer failed in the project. As Federal Minister of the Interior, the CSU politician wanted to herald that more rejected asylum seekers should leave the Federal Republic. The law he presented for this was called the “Orderly Return Law”. The effect? Barely noticeable. The numbers remained at a low level.

Seehofer has not been a minister for a year now. But the idea lives on. In the coalition agreement, the traffic light government speaks of a “fresh start” in migration and integration policy. They want to enable more “regular migration”. At the same time, the SPD, Greens and FDP promise a “repatriation offensive”: According to the coalition agreement, those who are dangerous and offenders in particular are to be deported.

But the fact is: it will be difficult for the government to keep to its deportation plans. According to information from WDR and NDR government circles see little chance of a successful implementation of the “repatriation offensive” in the foreseeable future. The reason: many people who are at risk or relevant persons are nationals of countries with which there is currently little or no diplomatic exchange and therefore not on the subject of returns.

Halving of repatriations expected

As the federal police recently explained, according to groups of participants in the Bundestag, the experts in the Joint Counter-Terrorism Center (GTAZ) are currently dealing with 607 threats or relevant persons who are enforceably obliged to leave the country. More than half of them are Syrians, citizens of Russia, mainly from Chechnya, or Afghans. When asked, the Ministry of the Interior explained that returns to these countries are currently suspended.

The new figures show that the group of potentially dangerous people who are even eligible for deportation is shrinking. The actual departures of people within this group have also fallen recently. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, 22 dangerous people and six relevant people were returned in 2021. By the end of August 2022, there were only five threats and one relevant person in the current year.

Dangerous people are people who are believed to be capable of committing a serious crime at any time. Relevant people can be leaders or supporters. The trend therefore points to a halving of returns – and that despite the improved corona situation in 2022, deportation transports are actually made easier.

On the other hand, there are no reliable statistics on deported criminals. This is also due to the difficult definition: Does the coalition mean people who are currently still in prison? Or people who were once criminals?

Unexplained Identities

It is not so easy to clarify who is responsible for the low numbers. The actual responsibility for returns lies with the federal states. However, there are various actors involved in the process. In the so-called Center for Return Support (ZUR), for example, the federal and state governments work together to organize collective deportations or to approach countries of origin that refuse to recognize nationals or issue passports in a coordinated manner.

The coalition agreement states that the federal government wants to provide more support to the states in the future when it comes to deportations. Several countries are also insisting on this. Lower Saxony points out that the federal government is “originally responsible for cooperation negotiations” with the countries of origin. And this is where one of the biggest challenges lies.

If you ask around in the 16 federal states, you will learn of many efforts, but also of great hurdles. The most important obstacle to deportation is unclear identities. It becomes particularly difficult when people do not have papers and the presumed country of origin does not cooperate or only cooperates poorly. But that is exactly what often happens. Saxony-Anhalt, for example, reports on states that provide their presumed citizens with replacement passport papers. These are then only valid for a specific day and flight. If this fails, the procedure starts all over again.

Departure to third countries

If a country refuses to accept its own citizen, there is a lesser-known alternative: the person is not deported to the country of origin, but travels to a third country that has agreed to accept them. Almost all federal states have done this in recent years. This is how it went, for example, with a Syrian threat who had announced an attack in Germany. The Islamist finally left Saxony-Anhalt for Sudan with his own consent. The problem then, however, was that the case became public knowledge and provoked local protests. Sudan is not said to have been pleased, according to security circles.

In order to gather information about threats as quickly as possible, several federal states have set up so-called case conferences. Security authorities, immigration authorities, the judiciary and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) advise jointly there. In Baden-Württemberg there is a “Special Unit for Dangerous Foreigners” of the Ministry of Justice. Other states such as Hesse (Joint Working Groups on Intensive Offenders), North Rhine-Westphalia (Security Conference), Brandenburg or Bavaria (AG BIRGit, Accelerated Identification and Return of Endangerers from the Area of ​​Islamist Terrorism/Extremism) also report such case conferences.

Deportations to Afghanistan rejected

The deportation problems are risky for the traffic light, because it could be all the more difficult to get support from the population for the planned easier immigration of foreign workers or the admission of further refugees. The rising number of arrivals is further exacerbating the conflict. According to their own statements, many municipalities are also at the breaking point due to the admission of refugees from Ukraine.

In recent weeks, coalition representatives are holding long meetings to clarify the points of contention in the next migration package. An agreement should be presented soon. People familiar with the negotiations do not expect any major changes on the issue of repatriation: deportations to Afghanistan were discussed but rejected again.

In any case, there should soon be more financial means for voluntary departures, reports the Federal Ministry of the Interior. A “migration and mobility agreement” is currently being finalized with India. And shortly, the special representative agreed in the coalition agreement for “partnership migration agreements” will be appointed.