Rejected asylum seekers are to be deported from Germany more quickly in future. After the Bundestag, the Bundesrat also approved the “Act to Improve Repatriation” at the beginning of February. This law is controversial. Various groups from human rights organizations to sea rescue are protesting against it—as well as demonstrators in Tübingen.
Among other things, the law provides for criminals to be deported more quickly. As a rule, deportations will no longer be announced. Authorities have more opportunities to search—for example, for documents to determine the country of origin. Police officers are also allowed to search rooms other than the room of people who are to be deported in shared accommodation, for example.
The law also extends detention pending deportation. Instead of the previous ten days, it may now last a maximum of 28 days. However, minors—with the exception of juvenile offenders—and families with minors are not to be detained pending deportation. And: those in detention pending deportation must be provided with a lawyer.
Smugglers are also to be punished more severely. But even in the future, rescuing shipwrecked people should not be punishable.
A few figures: According to the Ministry of the Interior (BMI), 16,430 people were deported in 2023 (2022: 12,945 deportations). At the end of December 2023, 242,642 people were required to leave the country, according to the BMI. However, 193,972 of these people had a tolerated stay in Germany for various reasons. This means that in four out of five cases, deportation was suspended.
See https://www.bundesrat.de/DE/plenum/bundesrat-kompakt/24/1041/1041-pk.html?cms_top=20777494 scroll down to top 7.
And:
https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/kurzmeldungen/DE/2024/01/bt_verbesserte_rueckfuehrung.html
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