Germany to speed up migrant deportations

Police officers in Germany raided a refugee shelter in the southern town of Ellwangen on 3 May, three days after a group of migrants clashed with police over the deportation of a 23-year-old migrant from Togo.

The operation came as a new “master plan on migration” was recently presented by German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.

Seehofer promised tougher action to curb illegal immigration, accelerate asylum procedures and speed up the deportation of rejected asylum seekers.

“What happened (in Ellwangen) was a slap in the face of the law-abiding population,” Seehofer told reporters in Berlin, according to Associated Press.

“The right to hospitality can’t be trampled on like that,” Seehofer said. He added that security authorities would “use all their force and determination” to prosecute those asylum seekers who blocked police from carrying out the deportation.

German police say the large-scale operation was necessary because of the situation officers faced when they arrived to pick up the rejected asylum seeker.

“They were massively prevented from doing so, violently, by about 150 to 200 African refugees,” said Bernhard Weber, deputy police chief in the town of Aalen near Ellwangen.

Weber said a decision was made to enforce the deportation of the Togolese migrant back to Italy, which he passed through on his way to Germany. According to the European Union Dublin Regulations, migrants have to apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter.

As part of the new migration plan, Germany wants to house asylum seekers in central asylum centres, where they will stay with up to 1,500 other migrants for a period of up to two years. Migrants will not be distributed across the country until their asylum application has been approved.

Judges will be working inside the asylum centers. Those asylum seekers whose applications are not approved will be deported straight from the centres.

Seehofer also wants to increase the number of holding facilities for those who are to be deported to prevent them from evading deportation.

TMP – 24/05/2018