Migration then and now

Today, some people talk about migrants being lured into our affluent societies by pull factors. Others think push factors drive migrants away from their homelands. Migration researchers do not see such simple causes, but complex interrelationships and communication via social networks as triggers and compasses of migration movements. Example: when Hungary built a fence, refugee flows ran along other routes.

Widespread is the misconception that it is the poorest who leave Africa. In fact, those who are comparatively wealthy come, because only they can pay the smugglers. This misconception is followed by the next misconception: immigration into our social systems is not the main reason for flight. Those who have sold their fishing boat want to rebuild a good existence in Europe.

Of course, there are also free riders, often unaccompanied youths, who rely on the welfare system and supplement their income by pickpocketing instead of attending language courses and integrating. And there are refugees who slip into poverty and gang crime, stand out as multiple offenders and spoil the crime statistics for refugees, which are otherwise rather positive.¹⁾ The tabloid press reports on this intensively, deliberately inflating a bubble.

Here lies the main cause for discontent and anger of the population: a small number of intensive offenders is obviously not put a stop to, they are also not taken into custody, but can commit unhindered again and again crimes. This shapes the image of all refugees in the tabloid press and brings the AfD electoral success as a protest party, which it would not otherwise have.

The policy of all other parties reacts to it impotently, finds no solutions. Yet our constitutional state presupposes the unambiguous identity of all citizens, visitors and tourists in Europe. Biometric and digital passport checks when entering the Schengen area should become a matter of course.

Multiple and multiple registrations of asylum seekers and refugees entering without identity papers invalidate the rule of law. Without clear identification, our rule of law is undermined. Rule of law guarantees run dry when criminals with multiple identities can leave the country or go into hiding despite Europol or Interpol searches.

The EU required biometric identifiers (facial image, fingerprints) as early as 2004 in order to clearly assign passports and travel documents to their holders and thus prevent fraudulent use.²⁾

Fraudulent use of passports and travel documents is particularly easy when asylum seekers and refugees cannot prove their identity and therefore temporary identity documents are issued. This is the case when identity documents have been lost in civil war turmoil. But smugglers have quickly discovered this scam, throwing away their clients' identity documents to make it easier for them to enter the country and harder to deport them.

This scam is used by refugees who give a false identity and nationality to avoid being deported. Others register multiple times in order to receive social benefits more than once or to go underground after committing crimes. Anis Amri, the 2016 Breitscheidplatz attacker in Berlin, was traveling in Germany with eight different identities.³⁾

Multiple registration and misuse of temporary identity documents are still possible. It was only during checks in shared accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees that the Federal Employment Agency found that benefit recipients no longer lived there. The benefits were only then discontinued.

In2019, our Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK) has cornerstones to the biometric identifier only noted, not effectively decided.⁴⁾ A regulation of the clear assignment of personal identity across all registers with the help of a biometric identifier probably does not exist until today. The reason for this is the 1983 census ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, in which the highest court formulated the fundamental right to informational self-determination, named personal identifiers, classification characteristics and their substitutes several times, and clearly rejected them in relation to the merging of data.⁵⁾

But the fundamental right to informational self-determination does not prohibit biometric features in identity cards, passports and temporary identity documents. Only the central matching across all registers is not allowed.

In view of this constitutional situation, I propose that asylum seekers and refugees no longer be issued temporary ID documents until their identity has been clearly clarified. In the process, their home country should also be established beyond doubt. A lack of interpreters should not prevent this.

Asylum seekers and refugees who cannot prove their identity should be housed in reception camps in a humane manner until their identity has been clarified, such as existed for a long time for ethnic German repatriates and displaced persons in Friedland in Lower Saxony and still exist today as border transit camps for refugees.⁶⁾

About the author: Otfrid Weiss is Assessor jur., Ministerialrat a.D. and Colonel of the Reserve. After his administrative career, he spent 21 years in business, including 14 years with SAP, Microsoft, Vision Consulting and Deloitte.

Notes:

1) "Among the delinquent immigrants, the high number of multiple offenders stands out, especially among people from the Maghreb countries Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, but also from Georgia. Some of them are tolerated or even obliged to leave the country, i.e. have not been recognized as refugees. Asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, on the other hand, are much less likely to commit crime. Looking at the figures for recognized refugees alone, it is clear that they were more law-abiding than Germans in 2017. So statistically, a recognized refugee commits fewer crimes than a German." - Source (no longer clickable): https://www.zeit.de/amp/news/2019-01/08/faktencheck-sind-auslaender-haeufiger-kriminell-als-deutsche-181221-99-316592

2) In 2009, the EU created the legal basis to collect biometric identifiers from visa applicants (facial image and ten fingerprints) in the Visa Information System (VIS). Then, in 2017, the EU adopted a regulation to collect entry, exit, and refusal of entry data of third-country nationals at the external borders of the Member States of the European Union. This regulation provides for a combination of four fingerprints and the facial image as biometric identifiers. In June 2019, the German Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK) then wanted to adopt key points for introducing one-to-one identifiers (referred to here as "identifiers" in new German) in Germany as well. What these should be remained open. But at least it said: "A unique assignment of personal identity across all registers is to be established. This can be done with the help of an identifier that safeguards the rights and freedoms of the data subjects under Article 87 of the General Data Protection Regulation. The identifier used for this purpose must be so reliable and robust that process chains without media breaks always operate on the basis of unique personal identities, even in complex situations." - Source: https://www.innenministerkonferenz.de/IMK/DE/termine/to-beschluesse/20190614_12/anlage-zu-top-12.pdf

3) Asylum seekers and refugees in Germany still cannot be centrally registered because our authorities are not networked among themselves, neither among federal authorities such as the Federal Border Guard and customs, nor between federal and state authorities such as employment agencies and district offices (in the transferred sphere of action), nor between federal states. Thus, the Breitscheidplatz attacker, Anis Amri, was able to apply for asylum undetected under at least five different identities, to travel around Germany unhindered with eight different identities, and to draw HARTZ IV in 14 of 16 federal states at the same time without being discovered. Cf. https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2016/12/attentat-berlin-breitscheidplatz-weg-anis-amri.html

4) Source: https://www.innenministerkonferenz.de/IMK/DE/termine/to-beschluesse/20190614_12/beschluesse.pdf

5) Source: https://netzpolitik.org/2019/innenminister-wollen-personendaten-zentral-speichern-und-identifier-fuer-alle

6) In the following years, Friedland is primarily a stopover for ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. In addition to these, people from a wide variety of countries also find refuge in Friedland time and again. In 1956, for example, there are refugees from Hungary, in 1973, after the military coup in Chile, people persecuted by the Pinochet regime, in 1978 boat people from Vietnam, in 1984 Tamils from Sri Lanka and in 1990 refugees from Albania. In the years of the fall of communism in 1989/90, immigrants also arrived from the GDR, followed by emigrants from the successor countries of the Soviet Union. In 1990 alone, 400,000 Aussiedler arrived in Friedland. (...) Today, the border transit camp (GDL) Friedland is the only initial reception facility for ethnic German repatriates and their relatives in Germany. (...) In 2011, Friedland also became one of Lower Saxony's initial reception centers for asylum seekers. Friedland faces a particularly great challenge in 2015 due to the huge influx of refugees, especially from civil war countries such as Syria and Iraq. In the fall of 2015, the transit camp is meanwhile completely overcrowded. At that time, it has capacity for around 700 asylum seekers, but at times more than 3,500 refugees live there. - Source: https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/schauplaetze/Durchgangslager-Friedland-Tor-zur-Freiheit-fuer-Kriegsgefangene,friedland102.html (NDR report dated 9/26/2023)