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Germany's Faeser defends deportation law for failed asylum-seekers

Published January 18,2024
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Germany's Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has said the planned measures for faster returns of failed asylum-seekers are 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," the Social Democrat politician told the Rheinische Post newspaper in remarks published on Thursday.

A series of innovations will prevent people from absconding before they can be deported, she said.

The draft for the so-called Return Improvement Act, which the Bundestag will finalize on Thursday, is intended to simplify procedures to ensure that more people without the right to stay are deported.

Up to now, deportations have often failed at the last moment, for example because the people concerned cannot be found. This is why the maximum duration of detention pending deportation is to be extended from 10 days to 28 days in future.

In addition, representatives of the authorities in shared accommodation centres should also be allowed to enter rooms other than the room of the person being deported.

"These restrictive measures are necessary so that we can continue to fulfil our humanitarian responsibility for the people we have to protect from war and terror - such as the 1.1 million refugees from Ukraine," said Faeser.

"These restrictive measures are necessary to ensure that we maintain social acceptance for the protection of refugees and that integration is successful," Faeser said.