Decisions concerning asylum applications have allegedly been postponed for several weeks as German authorities are set to reassess the security situation in Syria, according to media reports. Last year, Germany’s interior minister decided to extend a deportation moratorium for people from the country, citing the possible danger.
The German Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has apparently been pushing back asylum decisions in recent weeks, the German media group Funke reports. According to the group’s newspapers, migration authorities are postponing applications mainly of people from Syria, who are generally granted subsidiary protection.
The country’s Interior Ministry clarified at the media’s request that this concerns cases for which the proposed changes to the BAMF guidelines would be relevant when making a decision.
The report suggests that the migration body re-evaluated the security situation in Syria and updated its internal guidelines in mid-March; however, it is not publicly known yet what the assessment was. The BAMF is subordinate to the Interior Ministry, thus the latter needs to decide on the guidelines, which has not happened yet.
The report says that Interior Ministry, headed by Horst Seehofer, known for his hard-line stance on migration, is to coordinate an assessment of the security situation in Syria with the Foreign Ministry.