Statement by terre des hommes on the Repatriation Improvement Act
Osnabrück/Berlin, October 25, 2023. Today, the German Federal Cabinet approved the government's draft law on improving repatriation procedures. With this, the Federal Government has agreed on a catalog of stricter measures regarding the expulsion, detention, deportation, and criminalization of asylum seekers and people without residency permits, a catalog that could have originated during the time of Horst Seehofer. The children's rights organization terre des hommes rejects the draft law entirely. For children and young people, these stricter measures primarily mean growing up in a constant climate of fear of deportation and abuse by the authorities.
According to the draft law, far-reaching powers are to be granted to immigration authorities and the police, enabling them to disregard the needs and rights of children and young people during deportations. "In the future, children and young people could be dragged from their beds by the police in the middle of the night without warning, either because they themselves are to be deported or because the police are looking for someone else to deport. The police could even break down the bedroom door," says Sophia Eckert, migration expert at terre des hommes . "This can and will severely traumatize children and young people and blatantly violates the principle of the child's best interests. Such a practice is unworthy of a state governed by the rule of law.".
The current draft law also proposes significant tightening of restrictions on deportation detention and pre-deportation custody. terre des hommes is already aware of countless cases in which fathers, but also single mothers, have been separated from their children through deportation detention or pre-deportation custody, solely to facilitate the deportation of the families. "Last year, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child clearly called on the German government to prevent the separation of refugee and migrant children from their parents. Instead of heeding this call, the German government is drafting a law that will lead to an increase in family separations that violate human rights and children's rights," said Sophia Eckert.
In such a restrictive climate, it is hardly surprising that the facilitations for family reunification for refugees announced in the 2021 coalition agreement are once again being ignored with the Repatriation Improvement Act. "It cannot be that family reunification for refugees entitled to protection is once again being overlooked in the current legislative proposal. Their family reunification must be facilitated immediately. The families can no longer wait. While everything seems politically possible in the areas of repatriation and detention, the right of refugees to live with their families is being trampled on," explains Sophia Eckert.