Germany Opens Debate On Algerian Illegal immigrants

German parliament’s Upper House “Bundesrat”, voted against considering Algeria a safe state, a decision which came at the request of the Berlin government that spends to obtaining legal authorization that allows the deportation of Algerian refugees who are residing illegally on German soil.

This decision opposes the desire of the Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, especially since the project noticed strides, having won the agreement of the lower house of the parliament “Bundestag” in last May, which means that the Bundesrat’s positive decision would have allowed the deportation of thousands of illegal immigrants, not only the Algerians but the Tunisians and Moroccans as well.

German Interior Minister, Thomas De Maizière, did not understand the decision of the “Bundesrat”, because the German government launched a series of contacts at the senior level with the Algerian authorities and its neighbors in the Maghreb, as Angela Merkel contacted earlier the Prime Minister, Abdelmalek Sellal, and obtained facilities from the Algerian government, for the readmission of illegal immigrants in their own country, because they do not have identity documents that prove their nationalities.

Shock that was caused by the decision of the upper chamber of the German parliament was confirmed by De Maisière, who ordered the opening of a trial against what he described as “criminals”, meaning the Algerian illegal immigrants who are living in the German soil, and that after Berlin hoped to get rid of them through deportation to their countries of origin.

Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in Germany has preempted the decision of the “Bundesrat”, and described the political situation in Algeria and in the Maghreb countries as “troubled”, in a reading that was completely different to the perception of the federal government, which was only looking for an excuse to get rid of this category of immigrants, noting that human rights activists and the left Party and the Greens strongly opposes any decision to expel illegal immigrants.

It is known that German law does not grant asylum to people who come from safe countries, which means that the German upper chamber’s decision will encourage more Algerians who are wishing to migrate toward Germany, as long as they have become, by virtue of the recent developments, immune from deportation, even though their chances of obtaining residence documents, will remain very few.

Internal Guidelines of the Federal Bureau of Migration and Refugees in Germany has not ruled out the possibility of a political persecution against persons in Algeria, an information that is usually received by this office from the Foreign Ministry. As for the aspects of the allegations of persecution, the Office says it may occur because of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, and the persecution may also take sexual dimension (women and homosexuals).

German government’s decision to start the process of deporting illegal Algerian immigrants came after the events that were experienced by the German city of Cologne in the new year’s celebrations, where young men (who have Maghreb features) were accused of committing attacks against German women.