Shortly before eight o’clock in the evening, Daniel M. was released again on Monday evening. His human resources manager from the Munich Foundation for the elderly, David Strobel, welcomed him personally, as he said on the phone on Tuesday morning. “He didn’t realize it right away,” says Strobel. His voice sounds relieved.
Until early Monday evening it still looked like M., a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, would be deported to his home country on Tuesday night. He was informed of this last Friday at a supposedly regular appointment at the Neuburg-Schrobenhausen immigration office, after which he was brought before a magistrate and imprisoned. And that despite the fact that he is currently training to become a nursing assistant in a nursing home.
Münchenstift managing director Renate Binder was “stunned” and appealed to those responsible to stop the deportation. Within one day, the political pressure built up to such an extent that the Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) gave in. On Monday evening he was informed that he had decided that the refugee “would have another chance and would not be deported at the moment.”
When he was released, he had spent three days in detention pending deportation, alone and with thousands of questions. “He was very stressed by the weekend, didn’t sleep and was very afraid to go back,” reports Strobel. Now it’s time to recover from the experiences, says the supervisor. Daniel M. is back at home in his apartment in Munich. In the coming days we will work with the lawyer to see what needs to be done so that M.’s prospects of staying are “legally watertight”.
When asked, the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior announced that the responsible immigration authority would issue M. with a toleration and an employment permit to continue his training until August 31, 2024, as long as the training contract is valid. With regard to his prospects of staying afterwards, the authorities will speak to him as soon as possible. This also depends on whether he can continue with the three-year training to become a nursing specialist after the one-year assistant training.