Longer exit detention and additional powers for the police: The traffic light government wants to make deportations of rejected asylum seekers more effective. The law has now received the necessary majority in the Bundesrat.
Rejected asylum seekers should be able to be deported more quickly in the future. After the Bundestag, the so-called Return Improvement Act now also passed the Bundesrat.
This means that detention on departure will be extended from ten to 28 days. In addition, the police will in future be allowed to enter rooms other than those of the person concerned in order to arrest a person who lives in shared accommodation and is to be deported. Such actions should increasingly be allowed at night and deportations should no longer be announced. An exception applies to families with children up to the age of twelve. In addition, the penalties for smuggling will be increased.
The law also allows asylum seekers to be able to start work after six months instead of the current nine months. The duration for receiving benefits for asylum seekers, which are significantly below the normal basic security, will be extended from one and a half to three years.
reaction to increased Numbers of asylum seekers
The draft law was already passed in the Bundestag two weeks ago. The traffic light government is reacting to the significantly increased number of asylum seekers and dwindling accommodation options for refugees in many municipalities. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in the Bundestag that anyone who does not have the right to stay will have to leave Germany again. This is a prerequisite “for migration to be accepted in society and for integration to work,” said the SPD politician.
The Prime Minister of Hesse, Boris Rhein, emphasized in the Federal Council that he fully shared the goals. Faster returns relieved the burden on municipalities and at the same time increased acceptance for all refugees legally staying in this country, said the CDU politician. However, Rhein complained that the federal government had not taken up the states’ demands for changes.
Kretschmer demands Amendment to the Basic Law
In order to reduce the number of asylum seekers even more effectively, Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschemer is calling for a change to the Basic Law. “Of course, in order to fundamentally clarify this issue, a change to the Basic Law is needed,” said the CDU politician ARD–Morning magazine. This is also necessary as a basis for asylum seeker benefits and must apply, for example, to the planned introduction of the payment card.
Migration is “the central issue” on which the “failure or success of politics” is currently being determined, said the deputy CDU chairman.
“Asylum procedures outside the European Union”
The changes to the Basic Law he proposed are about “services that may have to be re-explained in the constitution,” said Kretschmer. Further changes would have to be aimed at “ensuring that authorities can act differently”.
In addition, asylum procedures outside the European Union and return agreements with relevant countries as partners are necessary, emphasized Kretschmer.