On the second of August, the Federal Ministry of Interior and Homeland, under the control of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, published a discussion draft on the issue of asylum law. The content of this draft provides for an expansion of powers for police and authorities in deportations and represents a clear attack on the rights of refugees.
That discussion draft is a kind of proposal for a change of the laws, which will be discussed further before the Ministry of Interior presents a concrete draft law. From time to time, various things in such drafts of the Ministry are still changed. But often these are enforced and accepted in a relatively similar way. If that discussion draft were to be adopted now, it would have a strong negative impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people here in Germany, because that draft is directed against numerous people living in Germany who have fled their home countries because of the suffering and misery that the imperialists are causing in the oppressed nations.
A importent point in this draft ist, that they want make it possible to deport people which are alleged members of so called "criminal clan structures", without that they commited a crime. In the near past here was been reported about. But besides that, there are some more reactionary points which restricts the rights of many people in this country who are refugees
Especially in the question of so-called "repatriations" ,in which people are abducted by the police and deported to another country, the powers of the authorities are to be expanded and the rights of refugees severely restricted. The discussion draft provides, among other things, that the objection or a complaint against entry and residence bans should no longer have suspensive effect, which makes it more difficult for refugees to oppose the bureaucratic arbitrariness of the foreigners authorities in an official way, because they can be deported at any time, even before a court has ruled on their objection.
The police are also to be given more powers to do this. For example, the draft provides that the police may now also enter the rooms of other persons when they search someone. This means that if a deportation takes place in a refugee home and the cops don't find the person, they would then be allowed to simply search the entire refugee home and all the rooms belonging to it. Thats about the much-vaunted personal rights in Germany.
Furthermore, persons who are obliged to leave the country may now be detained and taken into custody not 10 but 28 days before their deportation. This should give the authorities more time to prepare so-called "repatriations" with "considerable organizational effort", as the draft says.
In certain situations, the detention of refugees should also be faster. However, not because of any disgusting crimes directed against the masses, but because of bureaucratic things like a false or incomplete statement about their person. This is then referred to as a more enforced "duty to cooperate" for asylum seekers and is justified by the fact that incorrect and incomplete information on identity is one of the "main obstacles" to deportations. Until now, such inaccurate information was the only way for many people to save themselves from immediate deportation, but now they must expect to be locked up in prison for up to a year like criminals. Even violations of the residence and entry ban are now to constitute grounds for imprisonment.
One of the most central points in the question of deportations, however, is that the discussion draft stipulates that deportations no longer have to be announced in advance in the future. People with a toleration permit would then have to reckon with the police suddenly turning up at their place of work, arresting them and tearing them from their lives and taking them to another country.
A large number of people would then be confronted with the situation of having to live permanently in fear of imminent deportation. According to the Central Register of Foreigners, approximately 304,000 people were obliged to leave the country at the end of 2022. Of these, approximately 248,000 had a toleration, which means that although these people are obliged to leave the country, they are not liable to prosecution for illegal residence in Germany because they have not yet been deported for certain reasons. Reasons for this can be, for example, that they have no identification documents, are sick, there is a deportation stop against their country of origin or they also have a minor child who has a residence permit. Many people with toleration have been living and working in Germany for years. But even if they have been in this country for a long time and have built a life here, there is always the danger that the foreigners authority suddenly decides that the reasons for their toleration are now invalid and they will be deported. Until now, such deportations had to be announced a month in advance so that the people have at least a short time to take care of their personal affairs, but if the discussion draft is now adopted, each of these people would actually have to fear to be deported tomorrow without warning.
This draft has its background in the decisions of the refugee summit. A few months ago, at the beginning of May, the refugee summit came to an end. The federal and state governments met to discuss how to deal with refugees. The municipalities demanded a new financing model in this area, based on the number of refugees, as they are severely underfunded and have difficulties providing for the refugees in their facilities in a humane manner due to the financial deficiencies. In the end, the federal government agreed to pay a billion more to the municipalities in addition to the hundreds of billions that are currently being invested in war and rearmament, but rejected the demanded financing model. Instead of giving the money that is needed to take good care of the refugees, a number of measures were decided at the summit to speed up asylum procedures and to deport rejected asylum seekers even more consistently and quickly. As a result, this discussion draft has now been prepared and presented.
The fact that this draft has now been drawn up and published in this form under the leadership of Interior Minister Faeser may also have a background in a well-considered election campaign calculation. Federal-State elections will be held in Hessen in October, and Faeser takes part as the SPD's top candidate. In any case, it seems likely that the discussion draft is a deliberate attempt to siphon off voters from the reactionary AFD in the coming election campaign.
Actually, this draft also sounds very much like the demands of the AFD. The AFD is a party that is openly reactionary and is therefore often hotly debated in the media. Especially in the anti-fascist movement, there are also many forces that place a very strong focus on the AFD and see it as the current main enemy in this country. Some voices even go so far as to call for the election of social democratic parties, simply to somehow prevent that the AFD comes to power, because then supposedly everything will be even worse. But what we can currently see is that the German state now becomes more and more reactionary. It is more armed, it is more and more often democratic fundamental rights are restricted and as here also more and more chauvinistic and racist laws and measures are decided. But those who decide and push these are at the current time not the AFD but the "democratic" government parties. Maybe the AFD is more openly reactionary and has less fear of openly cooperating with Nazis, but in essence, exactly the racist and reactionary policies that are demanded by this party are implemented by the other bourgeois parties.
