German Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, who was among the critics of the “open borders” migrant policy, has pushed his plans to toughen the asylum system, shaken by recent accusations of corruption against officials of the Federal Migration and Refugee Agency.
German Interior Minister, representing the Christian Social Union, has expressed regret on behalf of the federal government for the unfolding misconduct scandal around the German Migration and Refugee Agency (BAMF).
During five-hour hearings of the dedicated parliamentary committee behind closed doors, he also pushed his reform of the asylum organization in Germany.
Known for his tough stance on illegal migration, Seehofer proposed to create “anchor-centers” for new asylum seekers, where they would be housed while their applications are processed, soon after he took the post of the interior minister this March.
Back then, the idea was criticized by some NGOs, politicians from the CDU’s coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the federal police, who would be in charge of such centers, while a representative of the Police Union (GdP), J?rg Radek, called the plan illegal.
After revelations concerning alleged bribes and asylum grants given en masse without proper evaluation in the Bremen regional branch of the BAMF emerged, Seehofer brought the reform plan of the migration system back.
German Interior Ministry also announced it would look into 18,000 asylum cases, approved at Bremen’s BAMF office, assigning 70 its people to this probe. Apart from the Bremen office, 13 more BAMF branches have been subjected to probes, according to the German tabloid Bild, as the proportion of accepted applications there differed noticeably from other offices.
In April the local prosecution service stated that six people, including the former director of the center, were being investigated for corruption.
