District Administrator Stefan Löwl (CSU) does not want to be a brute. It was important to him not to be called that anymore, he said some time ago. Now it has become impossible to spare him this designation. How else to name someone who sends a badly battered family into oblivion? The Christian Social describes itself as not responsible when it comes to protecting a Christian family. District Administrator Stefan Löwl misjudged this deportation campaign. Because there is a point in every story where the paragraph-riding has to come to an end: It is the point at which other people’s hearts beat.
In the spring, Löwl had himself praised for his integration policy by Minister of State Joachim Herrmann (CSU) on Bavarian radio. The Dachau district deals with refugees from the Ukraine in an “exemplary” manner. At the same time, Löwl’s immigration office has deported a total of ten people to Nigeria since the beginning of the year – the case of the Catholic family E. stands out in particular. The fact that three children, including a boy with a mental disability, have to get by with their sick parents without humanitarian protection can only be described as cruel.
Löwl’s authority itself started the downward spiral that led to the deportation of the E. family. When the father, who had a permanent position, was deprived of the opportunity to work – for incomprehensible reasons, as Green Party MP Beate Walter-Rosenheimer laments – there were gaps in his so-called employment biography. He was accused of these gaps when the application for an employment toleration was rejected. Elsewhere, such an employment tolerance is a tried and tested means of keeping employed specialists in the area. It is a discretion that is not used in Dachau.
Stefan Löwl is politically isolated, even damaged
If Löwl really examined individual cases, he could have taken the trouble to take a second look at those who were deported to Nigeria in 2022. Completely independent of the forthcoming right of residence. Löwl’s own perception does not match reality: he is not liberal.
Apparently, Löwl’s basic stance on the practice of deportation – which he himself always calls bound by the law but also humanely justifiable – hasn’t gotten through to his immigration authorities. In recent months, lawyers have repeatedly described the office in Dachau as “tough”. Clarifying calls from the district administrator in his authority lead to rebuffs. But never to personal consequences. Now Löwl puts off all the helpers who see their years of efforts ad absurdum. Rarely do members of the Bundestag find such clear words of criticism. Löwl is politically isolated, even damaged.
For the girl Claudia E., six years old, it is too late that her family’s case is now shocking the public. She was born in the Dachau Clinic and spent her childhood here. Can Löwl imagine what it means to be sent to a foreign country with two sick parents, a sister and a brother with mental disabilities? According to child carers, mother Faith was said to have repeatedly panicked before returning to Nigeria, loudly shouting “Boko Haram, Boko Haram”. District Administrator Löwl has decided to hide this background and to go the formal legal route. Inhuman.