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Mental Illness Act in North Rhine-Westphalia: Data for deportation
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A new law in North Rhine-Westphalia is intended to not only provide the police with more information about people who have been admitted to a clinic. The immigration authorities should also learn more about refugees in psychiatric hospitals - so that they can better plan deportations.
North Rhine-Westphalia wants to renew its Mental Health Act (PsychKG). On the one hand, this concerns when people can be involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric clinic. On the other hand, there are also offers of help and support for people with mental illness. In Germany, this is regulated at the federal state level.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, as in other federal states, there is another topic at the center of discussions: the exchange of data about people who are admitted to a clinic. Particularly if the admission was due to an established danger to others, i.e. because there is concern that a person could be dangerous to others due to their condition. And in North Rhine-Westphalia it is also about deportations.
Spoke on Thursdayhttps://www.landtag.nrw.de/home/der-landtag/tagesORDen/WP18/1800/E18...State Parliament Health CommitteeExperts onhttps://www.landtag.nrw.de/portal/WWW/documentenarchiv/Document/MMD18-19...Bill. Numerous statements from clinics, social psychiatric services, associations and those affected expressed concerns.
Hospitalization is not a punitive measure
“Here, in medical and psychiatric contexts, the police authority has an extended right to have a say in the flow of data up to and including dismissal,” writes thehttps://www.landtag.nrw.de/portal/WWW/documentenarchiv/Document/MMST18-4...Welfare care NRW. It is a working group that includes, among others, the Red Cross, Caritas and Workers' Welfare. Hospital placement under the PsychKG is “not a criminal measure”.
The criticism from independent welfare care relates to a new regulation as to who must be informed by the clinics when a person who has previously been forcibly admitted is discharged. In addition to confidants or the social psychiatric service, the local police should also be informed in certain cases in the future.
This applies if a person was admitted for endangering others and the police were involved. She should then check for herself “whether she needs to be involved further due to the risk potential of the person being accommodated”.
Many experts see it as a problem that the law creates the impression that mental illnesses have to be dealt with with security measures. According to the Free Welfare Association of North Rhine-Westphalia, this serves “the narrative of the ‘dangerous, mentally ill, violent criminals’. However, mental illness and acts of violence are only directly related to a small extent.”
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More data to deport
In addition to the police, immigration authorities and accommodation facilities for refugees should also learn more about people who have been admitted. According to the explanatory memorandum to the law, this is primarily about two things: Firstly, shared accommodation and initial reception centers should be able to take “appropriate protective measures” for other residents. Secondly, immigration authorities should be able to plan and carry out “possible further procedural steps within their area of responsibility”: “particularly with regard to an existing obligation to leave the country and subsequent repatriation”.
This also means that the immigration authorities should always know where a refugee is so that they can deport them at any time. Experts are outraged.
Psychiatric clinics should “not become places from which deportations take place on a regular basis,” writes the Action for the Mentally Ill. “Hospitals should remain protected spaces,” it sayshttps://www.landtag.nrw.de/portal/WWW/documentenarchiv/Document/MMST18-4...the opinionthe association in which members of the Bundestag and experts from psychiatric care have come together.
According to the PsychKG, people accommodated “with a serious mental illness and/or in a crisis situation,” writes the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology (DGPPN)https://www.dgppn.de/_Resources/Persistent/900380d1fbeb29b3a109c93d70145...their positioning, “should not be allowed to be repatriated from hospitals”.
Doctors are not deportation aides
Deportations from hospitals are already happening today. At ahttps://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/abschiebung-afghanistan-ps...to AfghanistanIn July 2025, at least three of the 81 affected people were in a psychiatric clinic immediately beforehand. At the beginning of 2025, the police took a suicidal refugee from a clinic in Osnabrück to kill himhttps://taz.de/Abschiebung-aus-der-Psychiatrie/!6145280/">nachdeport Gambia.
It is not known how many such deportations take place. The federal governmenthttps://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/21/037/2103727.pdf">writes, not knowing any numbers, because the states are responsible for that. They, in turn, sometimes lead, like thathttps://www.bayern.landtag.de/www/ElanTextAblage_WP19/Drucksachen/Schrif...Bavaria, no statistics.
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Thehttps://www.abschiebungen-klinik.de/startseite">“Reporting and information center for deportations from the hospital”collects reports on deportations from inpatient treatment and publishes handouts for health workers. The position is a project of the IPPNW Refugees and Asylum Working Group, short for: International Doctors for the Prevention of Nuclear War/Doctors in Social Responsibility.
Dr. Robin Maitra, doctor and member of the IPPNW board, writes to netzpolitik.org: “This new legal regulation is incompatible with medical confidentiality and should be rejected in terms of medical ethics and professional law.” The fact that doctors participate in deportations is not part of their duties and violates the medical duty of care.
“Deportations from medical facilities should be prohibited”
Maitra fears that “more data exchange with immigration authorities will lead to people with uncertain residence status avoiding necessary treatment even more” than before. Furthermore, it is not the case that people go to inpatient treatment to avoid deportation. “It’s more the other way around,” says Maitra. “The threat of deportation plunges people – especially those who are previously ill or traumatized – into severe psychological crises and even suicidal behavior.” This must be addressed “so that it doesn’t get to the point where vulnerable people are left alone to the point where they need inpatient treatment if they are threatened with deportation.”
In addition, says Maitra: "Patients requiring inpatient treatment are simply not fit to travel in the broader sense. Deportations from medical facilities should therefore be prohibited."
The German Medical Association also demands this. In onehttps://129daet.baek.de/data/media/BIc04.pdf">Decisionfrom last yearThe general meeting of the German Medical Association called for “the deportation of refugees from inpatient and other medical facilities to be declared inadmissible in all federal states”. In some federal states it is forbidden to deport people from hospitalshttps://www.fluechtlingsrat-thr.de/aktuelles/pressemitigungen/zuk%C3%B...Thuringia. Doctors demand that such a regulation should exist everywhere. What NRW is planning – i.e. further data exchange to make such a practice easier – would be the exact opposite.
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