In the affair about unlawful asylum decisions, the federal ministry of the interior is now putting up heavy guards.
In view of the criminal investigations, a joint investigation team of the central anti-corruption office and the state criminal office of bremen is planned with the support of the federal police. This was announced by the bremen senate after a crisis meeting of the federal government, the affected countries and the federal refugee office in the hanseatic city.
Employees of the bremen office of the federal office for migration and refugees (bamf) allegedly granted asylum to at least 1,200 people between 2013 and 2016 without sufficient grounds, according to the investigating public prosecutor’s office.
The crisis meeting was attended by a delegation from the federal ministry of the interior led by state secretary helmut teichmann, as well as representatives from the interior ministries of lower saxony and bremen and bamf staff from nurnberg. The president of the refugee agency, jutta cordt, who has come under criticism, did not initially want to make an official statement. She will testify on tuesday in the interior committee of the bundestag, she said.
On wednesday, german interior minister horst seehofer (CSU) decided that, for the time being, no more asylum decisions could be made at the bremen refugee center. A spokeswoman for his ministry said in berlin that "training" was currently underway for the nearly 50 employees. Early next week, bamf vice president ralph tiesler will come to bremen to talk to you. Then she will discuss her future work.
Josefa schmid, the head of the bremen bamf, who was temporarily transferred against her will, has drawn the attention of the federal office to around 200 other cases in the affair. This emerges from a response by the federal government to a question by afd member of parliament gotz fromming about a report written by schmid.
It states: "of the cases listed in the written presentation by the interim head of the office, which was prepared on her own initiative, around 90 percent had already been included in the audit that was started in the fall of 2017 by the BAMF’s internal audit department. The remaining 200 or so traps are currently under review."
Schmid was sent to bremen last january as the new head of the aubenstelle. She listed irregularities in the processing of previous asylum applications in the following weeks. She presented the results of her research first to the bamf management in nurnberg and then to the federal interior ministry. The bamf pulled schmid out of bremen after four months.
The parliamentary secretary of state in the interior ministry, stephan mayer (CSU), admitted that in retrospect he had treated schmid’s hints differently. "If i had known the explosive nature and above all the actuality of these events, then of course we could and should have accelerated things," he told journalists in the bavarian town of kiefersfelden.
Schmid had on 4. April spoke with mayer on the phone and sent him her analysis of the events in bremen the same evening. However, he did not receive this information until 16. April after returning from a business trip, mayer read. According to information from his ministry, interior minister seehofer only found out on 19. April from the accusations.
Meanwhile, the FDP is preparing a motion for an inquiry committee on the work of the bamf. A first discussion in the plenum is planned for the 7. June provided, it hieb from the fraktion.
The deputy chairwoman of the SPD parliamentary group, eva hogl, told the "rheinische post" (saturday) that seehofer must draw conclusions for the future of the bamf. "We expect that the quality offensive demanded by us at the bamf comes fast."For 13 years before seehofer, the union interior ministers had apparently not really looked at the situation.