An asylum decision takes an average of seven months, and it takes a further 18 months to appeal. Lost cases cost the federal government €17.8 million last year.
Two thirds of all asylum applications examined by the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) in 2023 were accepted. The recognition rate was particularly high at 99.9 per cent for refugees from Syria, the main country of origin. From January to April 2024, it even reached 100 per cent. For people from Afghanistan, the second main country of origin, 98.7 per cent and most recently 97.1 per cent of applications were approved. For asylum seekers from Turkey, the third main country of origin, this figure was only 17.8 per cent last year.
The data comes from a still unpublished answer from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to a question from Clara Bünger, a member of the Bundestag. The Left Party politician enquired about the so-called adjusted protection rate. This was 68.6 per cent last year and 63.5 per cent in the first four months of the current year. In 2022, the rate peaked at 72.3 per cent.
The current protection rate is also very high for refugees from Somalia (90.8 per cent) and Eritrea (84.8 per cent). For refugees from Iran, the rate was recently only 39.5 per cent. The recognition rate for asylum seekers from the Russian Federation fell to just 11.7 per cent in April 2024. The positive asylum decisions for Morocco, which is being discussed as a “safe country of origin”, are similarly low. The “adjusted protection rate” for Senegal, which as well was declared a “safe” country of origin, was 18.9 per cent in 2023, but is now only 4.8 per cent.
According to the Bamf, 329,120 people applied for asylum in Germany for the first time in 2023. In the first quarter of this year, 65,419 first-time applications were made, around 19 per cent fewer than in the same period last year.
Around half of refugees arrive in Germany without valid identity documents: according to the response, this accounted for almost half of all asylum applicants in 2023, and as many as 56.4 per cent in the first third of 2024. In particular, people from countries such as Guinea, Somalia and Pakistan often had no documents to show – many never had any. This apparently has little influence on the decision on the need for protection: the protection rate for undocumented asylum seekers in 2023 was almost as high (67.7 per cent) as the general average (68.6 per cent).
However, many negative decisions are subsequently corrected due to changed circumstances or by the courts. These figures are added to the “adjusted protection rate”. According to the response, one in four rejected decisions reviewed by the courts were recognised as unlawful; in the case of Iran, the error rate was even over half.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, an average asylum appeal procedure currently takes 17.6 months (2023: 20.7 months). Urgent applications – for example regarding Dublin decisions, according to which another country is responsible for the asylum procedure, or following a rejection as allegedly unfounded – are even decided by the courts after around one month.
Urgent applications against Dublin decisions were successful in around a third of all cases last year, despite the high requirements. For the other applications, the rate of successful urgent appeals during this period was around a quarter on average. The lost asylum court proceedings cost the Bamf €17.8 million – mainly due to the payment of costs for legal representation of asylum seekers.
Among the rejected asylum seekers who were granted protection status in 2023 following an appeal, court orders for people from Iran and Afghanistan stand out in particular. However, the administrative court in Gera deviates significantly from this average. This attitude of rejection could be due to the politically right-wing views of individual judges. This was most recently reported by judge Bengt Fuchs, who was transferred to another chamber as a result. The figures from the Bünger enquiry show that not a single positive asylum decision was made at Gera Administrative Court in 2023. Statistically speaking, given the usual cancellation rate, there should have been four recognitions there.
“We urgently need more expertise in the asylum debate,” says Left Party politician Bünger to “nd”. Ongoing debates about limiting refugee migration lead to the incitement of society and human rights violations against those seeking protection. “The many reasons that drive people around the world to flee must be tackled politically, there is no alternative in terms of human rights,” said the member of the Bundestag.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Haus der Statistik in Berlin (Crawford Jolly on Unsplash).
