migration
Bundestag approves measures to simplify deportations
The Bundestag has passed the Return Improvement Act. photo
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
The traffic light coalition had a difficult time, but the Bundestag has now agreed. The Return Improvement Act aims to deport more people without the right to remain.
A series of measures such as extended immigration detention are intended to prevent this in the future Deportations fail at the last moment. After a long tug of war in the traffic light coalition, the Bundestag passed a corresponding law.
In order to make it easier to deport foreigners without the right to remain, the statutory maximum duration of detention on departure will be extended from the previous 10 days to 28 days. In addition, officials are now allowed to enter rooms in shared accommodation other than just the room of the person being deported. In the past, deportations repeatedly failed because those affected could no longer be found.
The bill was briefly removed from the agenda in the last week of the session before Christmas because the Greens had called for improvements. At their insistence, it is now being ensured that those affected are provided with a lawyer. In addition, the law provides for tougher action against smugglers. Due to protests from human rights organizations, a subsequently inserted passage is intended to make it clear that the sea rescue of refugees is not criminalized.
Faeser defends law
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser had previously stated that the measures for faster returns were necessary in order to maintain social acceptance for the protection of refugees. “With our legislative package, we are ensuring that people without the right to stay have to leave our country more quickly,” said the SPD politician to the “Rheinische Post”.
“These restrictive measures are necessary so that we can continue to live up to our humanitarian responsibility for the people we have to protect from war and terror – like the 1.1 million refugees from Ukraine,” said Faeser.
Criticism of the new law
The co-chair of the Green Youth, Katharina Stolla, warned against this: “The deportation law means an incredible disenfranchisement of people who actually urgently need protection,” she told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. From their point of view, the federal government is being driven by the right.
There were also critical words from the Union. “The Greens are writing an obligation into the law to inform lawyers about the measures before they are taken into custody to leave the country – but this means that those who are obliged to leave the country will be out of the woods if they are to be taken into custody,” said the Union parliamentary group’s domestic policy spokesman, Alexander Throm (CDU). The repatriation improvement law is in reality a “repatriation deterioration law”.