The Cabinet meeting focused on a report prepared by the Federal Minister of the Interior and the Federal Foreign Minister on measures to promote enforced and voluntary returns.

The report provides a detailed overview of the current situation and measures being implemented by the Federal Government at national, European and international level to foster enforced and voluntary returns.

Significant increase in enforced returns

The number of enforced returns rose significantly compared to the previous year, from 13,851 in 2014 to 22,369 in 2015.

The term "enforced return" covers both those who are deported to their home country and those removals that require neither a warning nor the setting of a deadline and that can be directly enforced.

The number of people returning voluntarily also tripled. In 2014 a total of 13,636 people left Germany in the context of assisted return programmes. That number rose to 37,220 to 2015.  

Current legal and practical measures 

Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière highlighted those measures the Federal Government has already taken to make it easier for the Länder to repatriate third-country nationals who are required to leave the country and reduce the obstacles precluding departure.

Reducing obstacles precluding deportation

Available legal measures include the Act to Redefine the Right to Stay and the Termination of the Right of Residence and the Asylum Procedure Acceleration Act. They, for example, concern the power to read a third-country national’s data media to establish their identity and nationality, as well as the ban on notifying them of the date of their deportation.

In early February the Cabinet also adopted the Second Asylum Package. Minor illnesses and lack of a passport will in future not pose an obstacle to people returning to their home countries.

Fostering voluntary returns 

Practical measures include the setting up of a Federal/Länder Coordination Office for Integrated Return Management and the Enforced Returns Task Force based in the Federal Foreign Office. In addition, staff in the foreigners authorities will be reinforced by deploying federal employees.

Thomas de Maizière also stressed that the Federal Government was promoting various national and European projects to enable refugees to return voluntarily and reintegrate into their home countries.

Dispelling misinformation in countries of origin

Finally, Cabinet members were briefed on European and international cooperation. The Federal Government is committed to ensuring that those countries of origin to which it is proving difficult to return failed asylum applicants comply with existing obligations to readmit their nationals and, where necessary, to conclude new readmission agreements.

Communication strategies have been developed to facilitate enforced returns, for example in regard to Afghanistan. The aim is to provide information about the conditions under which asylum is granted in Germany and specifically to dispel misinformation.