Church asylums under strong political pressure

dossier

"Last year, the interior ministers tightened the rules for church asylum. Refugees can now still be deported after 18 months. The number of cases has fallen sharply since then. The Interior Ministry considers this a success. (…) In June last year, the federal and state interior ministers decided to tighten the practice of church asylum after they had previously accused the churches several times of not sticking to procedural agreements. (…) The ministry's figures also show that only a small percentage of In church asylum cases, the Federal Office, after further examination, declared its own intervention…” Article from March 6, 2019 in MiGAZIN . See what we believe is the only raison d’être of churches:

• Three of 402: Church asylum between Bamf course and AfD plans - outsourcing of church asylum not ruled out due to AfD threat in Saxony-Anhalt
  “Church asylum is coming under pressure from two sides: the Federal Office rejects almost all cases examined, while the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt announces a ban. The church is already thinking about outsourcing.
  The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees is sticking to a strict course on church asylum. In the first half of this year, only 3 out of 402 cases led to a so-called self-admission, whereby Germany declares responsibility for the case and the person affected can stay, according to a response from the federal government to oneQuestion from the Left in the Bundestag emerges. The other cases (399) were rejected.
  The number of “other tasks” has also fallen sharply, which usually involves a deadline that works in favor of those affected. According to the figures available to the Evangelical Press Service (epd), there were eleven such cases by the end of June. In the whole of 2025 there were 911. The number of rejections in the whole of 2025 was only 274. (…)
  Outsourcing of church asylum due to AfD threat
  The church asylum is coming under additional pressure in view of the AfD's possible takeover of government in Saxony-Anhalt. The Evangelical Church in Central Germany (EKM) is considering outsourcing church asylum to other federal states. “We will rather outsource these instruments because it is clearly the case that the day after tomorrow the police will be at the door and there will be collection,” said regional bishop Friedrich Kramer to the media portal “Fokus Thuringia”.The AfD announced in its election program that it would stop church asylum in Saxony-Anhalt and hold the churches financially accountable. According to current information, there are around 15 people in church asylum in the EKM area, which includes Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and parts of Saxony and Brandenburg.
  Church asylum is not a legally protected space, but a space of humanity and an informal agreement. The process is already underway. Regional Bishop Kramer did not want to give details because the topic was “highly sensitive”. It's about protecting people, both in the communities and the asylum seekers, said Kramer.”dpa/mig report from September 13, 2026 in Migazin (“Three out of 402: Church asylum between Bamf course and AfD plans”)
• Less money and growing criticism: Church asylum under pressure – Growing criticism of church asylum is also deterring communities
  "The Iranian Zeynep A. has been living in a church asylum in a Bielefeld parish for two months. The young Kurdish woman was persecuted by the police several times in Iran. "Once a police car came after me," she reports. “The police grabbed me and beat me badly.” The sports scientist can barely hear in one ear. In the mullahs' state she took part in demonstrations for women's rights. At the beginning of the year she came to Germany via Spain. But here, according to the so-called Dublin Regulation, she is threatened with being transferred to the EU's first country of entry. “That is impossible,” said Pastor Joachim Poggenklaß, criticizing the authorities’ actions. “She is traumatized and mentally ill.” The Protestant theologian is spokesman for the Ecumenical Network for the Protection of Refugees, which is based in the social parish office of the Evangelical Church District of Bielefeld. He helped organize the refuge. Zeynep A. is one of 20 refugees who were accepted into church asylum in Bielefeld in 2025. (…) The refugees would actually have to return to southern Europe and submit their application for asylum there, admits retired pastor Poggenklaß. (…) The Bielefeld parish, the ecumenical network and also church district social pastor Ingo Stucke are now arguing that the refugees here should still receive an asylum procedure. (…) “This is based on free agreements between the state and the churches,” explains Poggenklaß. This does not mean that the current immigration law will be repealed. “But so far all state authorities have mostly complied with it.” Although there have been occasional deportation attempts by immigration authorities and great political pressure is now being exerted on church asylum.Communities are also feeling this pressure more and more often. In addition, despite declining asylum requests, requests for church asylum remain high, says Poggenklaß. At the same time, fewer parishes would be available - for financial reasons. (…) The NRW Refugee Council is also aware of this development. “Criticism of church asylum has increased, it scares communities away,” says spokeswoman Birgit Naujoks. (…) Joachim Poggenklaß, who has been supporting church asylums for over 30 years, is resisting the development. He emphasizes that the refugees who are admitted are often faced with “blatant injustices”. Each individual case is examined carefully by the churches; everyone has to explain their life story and the reasons for their escape in detail. Only those who absolutely deserve protection would go to church asylum. The young Iranian woman Zeynep A. also had to report on her story of suffering. Pastor Poggenklaß was shocked by what he described. He now hopes that she will be given a secure perspective here: “It would be great if she could work as a sports teacher or trainer someday.” Article by Uwe Pollmann from November 25, 2025 in MiGAZIN 
• As legal means of preventing deportations through lawsuits become increasingly limited, church asylum is often the last hope
  "It's not just with the new federal government that there are more and more deportations: In 2024, 18,400 refugees were forcibly deported from Germany, which is around 2,000 more than in 2023. (...) The traffic light government had already implemented this state-organized "remigration." Further measures should now be taken to "optimize" return management. There is no social outcry and secretly it seems to extend to left-liberal positions to develop plausibility into this brutal policy. Those affected by deportation are degraded simply by their persistent fear of imminent arrest (…)
  As legal means of preventing deportations through lawsuits become increasingly limited, church asylum is often the last hope. Although only around 5.4 percent of all deportations nationwide failed through church asylum in 2024, that is still a record: 2,966 people were protected from the access of the deportation authorities in a church. The receiving parishes and monasteries have taken hospitality seriously to protect dignity - they have prioritized solidarity over blind compliance with dehumanizing law. Through the self-confident act of church asylum, they have evaded the logic of an all-encompassing administration of each and every individual. It is this subversive solidarity that makes this gray area practice of asylum in the church so important and at the same time so theologically explosive: Church asylum can be an emergency case of Christian practice if the focus is no longer on deadly violence (over 440 people have died in deportations since 1993), but rather on the attempt to live a good life in a protective community. (…)
  It is not yet possible to predict how the further tightening of migration policy will affect church asylum in the future. At the EU level, for example, the CEAS (Common European Asylum System) reforms are intended to extend the transfer period in Dublin procedures from six to twelve months - which would not only make church asylum more difficult. This is precisely why it seems important that civil society and within the church take a clearer position in favor of church asylum. Pastor Dietlind Jochims, the chairwoman of the federal working group “Asylum in the Church,” told media representatives: “We are noticing growing fear and uncertainty among people with insecure residence,” which is leading to a sharp increase in the number of requests for church protection. Let us hope that, especially in the current tense situation, church asylum as a practice “from below” does not lose momentum and that subversive spaces of real solidarity emerge…” Contribution by Benedikt Kern from August 11, 2025 at contraste.org (“Last Hope Church Asylum”)
• Church asylum under pressure: It's not safe here
  “For a long time, refugees were able to save themselves from deportations in church asylum. But recently police officers have repeatedly broken into church shelters.
  A few years ago, Sasu would not have believed that the church would help save her life. It's a rainy day in May, the 24-year-old Moroccan is sitting in an office at the Protestant community in Jena. The asylum seeker wears her dark hair short, a colorful pearl necklace and a pink cardigan. Her voice is quiet, the dark circles under her eyes shimmering through her make-up. “For the last few months I've been standing at the window at night so I can escape in case a patrol car comes,” she says. She speaks English and occasionally uses a German word. She then says “deport” or “police”. Sasu is the name that the young trans woman would like to have entered into her official documents as soon as possible. For security reasons, your last name should not appear in this text. Sasu has spent the past three months in church asylum. The Jena community provided her with a room to protect her from deportation to Romania, which the immigration authorities announced six months earlier. Because as a trans woman, Sasu is threatened with violence there. “I saw queer people getting beaten up on the streets and I hid for five months,” she says. For fear of being attacked, she dressed in men's clothing and did not wear make-up. In Romania, an adjustment of the gender entry is only possible under strict conditions, and medical care for trans people is limited. Back to Romania? “I wouldn’t survive that,” says Sasu. If the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) had its way, she would have to. (…) In order to help in particularly dramatic cases, Protestant and Catholic communities grant church asylum.(…) Last year, according to the BAMF, almost 3,000 people were protected from deportation through church asylum. That is twice as many as in 2017. Some say this is the result of harsher deportation practices. Others think the churches are overdoing it. When asked by taz, the interior ministries of several federal states expressed criticism in view of the increasing numbers. From Hesse, for example, it is said that the churches not only help people in emergency situations, but also set “political accents”. The CDU is also on the attack. The Christian Democratic Party has repeatedly urged the churches to remain politically neutral in recent months after they criticized the Union's migration course. At the end of April, Bundestag President Julia Klöckner (CDU) demanded in an interview with Bild am Sonntag that the church should comment less on current political issues, otherwise it risks becoming an interchangeable NGO. The Berlin CDU politician Kurt Wansner recently described the Protestant Church as a “left-green gang of smugglers”. (…) At least seven times in the past year and a half, police or immigration authorities have broken into community shelters to forcibly remove people from church asylum. The officers usually surrounded the church premises at night, and in one case a special operations team was even called in. (…) The responsible interior ministries of the federal states say that they have only implemented applicable law. Church representatives speak of a breaking of a taboo. In addition, the BAMF is increasingly rejecting the churches' hardship cases.In only 0.1 percent of church asylum cases in 2024, the authority recognized particular hardship and initiated the asylum procedure - a total of two times, as a taz query to the BAMF showed. (…) Yesterday, says Sasu, good news came to her in a yellow envelope: her Dublin deadline has expired and Germany is taking over the asylum procedure. She can now leave the church asylum. (…) Does life in freedom begin now? The one where you can dance and study without worrying about deportation? Sasu hesitates. The fear of blue lights and doorbells ringing at night will probably continue to accompany them. “I had big dreams, Germany made them shrink.” Article by Joscha Frahm from June 8, 2025 in the taz online 
• Hardship case? Bamf and communities are “often far apart” when it comes to church asylum 
  “EKD refugee bishop accuses Bamf of asylum rejections in text modules. The parishes, on the other hand, looked at the individual case
  The number of church asylums has increased in the past year. As the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) told the “Evangelical Press Service” when asked, 2,386 reports were received, an average of 199 per month. That was a good 300 more cases than in 2023 (2,065). According to the Federal Office, the cases reported last year affected 2,966 people (2023: 2,703). Most of them were so-called Dublin cases, which means that another European state would actually be responsible for the asylum procedure for those affected. Only 39 cases had no connection to Dublin, meaning there was a risk of deportation to another country outside the EU. (…) “Extraordinary hardship was recognized” in only one case last year, as the Federal Office announced. In this case, Germany declares itself responsible for the asylum procedure and the person concerned is allowed to stay. In recent years, very few cases have been recognized as hardship cases by the Federal Office, but in 2023 there were still nine. (…) In fact, the assessment of what constitutes a hardship case is now “often far apart” between the Federal Office and the parishes, said the refugee representative of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Christian Stäblein, to the “Evangelical Press Service”. The parishes looked at the individual case. “We can expect the same from the authorities,” explained Stäblein.However, the number of cases to be examined and the number of people dealing with them mean that the reasons and answers often consist of “text modules,” said the Berlin bishop: “At least that’s what I hear again and again.” (…) Church asylums often end successfully despite the Bamf's rejection because those affected only leave the community after the so-called Dublin transfer period and can then no longer be deported. This regularly leads to criticism from the state. In only one percent of cases the church asylum was left after receiving the rejection in 2023, "last year it was zero percent," said the authority's spokeswoman. Report from January 19, 2025 in MiGAZIN 
• The 3rd failed attempt at deportation from the church asylum in Bremen after an “authoritarian ‘agreement’” (Refugee Council) on suspension until the end of January
  • Attempted deportation from church asylum: In Bremen, justice takes precedence over mercy
    “Bremen's SPD Interior Senator Mäurer is once again trying to deport a person from church asylum - against green and left-wing coalition partners.
    Bremen's interior authorities continue to try to break the church asylum: According to information from the parishes, the 27-year-old Somalian Abdi M. was to be deported from the Remberti parish church asylum on Tuesday. On Monday, the project was canceled for more technical reasons: the Danish authorities had apparently not granted the necessary permission for the necessary stopover in Denmark in time. M. is to be sent back to Sweden. In fact, he had already lived there for several years and applied for asylum - according to the Dublin regulations, the case is legally clear: Sweden is responsible. This has not changed for the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) even as a result of the hardship dossier with which the church has advocated for the refugee at the Bamf. From a purely formal point of view, people insist on the legal regulation. The church argues from a different position: it sees M. and all other cases of church asylum as hardship cases - and would like to see its concerns about deportation examined in terms of content instead of a purely legal one. (…)
    The attempted repatriation of the Somali is the third failed attempt to deport him from church asylum by the Bremen interior authorities within two weeks. One night at the beginning of December, the migration office tried to deport a young Somali from the Zion community to Finland. The attempt was canceled because around 100 people had gathered in the church for peaceful resistance. Another attempted deportation from the Friedensgemeinde in the Bremen district a week later was also thwarted by protesting people.“Article by Lotta Drügemöller from December 21st, 2024 in the taz online 
  • Interior authorities and churches are getting closer: Churches promised not to abuse the church asylum. In return, Interior Senator Mäurer promised to respect the special privilege of the churches
    "In the conflict over the granting of church asylum in Bremen, Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer (SPD) and the Protestant church leadership in Bremen and Lower Saxony have moved towards each other. As the Bremen Interior Authority and the Bremen Evangelical Church announced after a conversation, the church leadership promised to "handle the instrument of church asylum with particular care." The Interior Senator therefore assured in return that the authorities would support the institution of Church asylum would be respected "without exception". Deportations from existing church asylum in Bremen would not be carried out until January 25th, "in view of the constructive discussion", the Bremen interior authority said. This also applies to cases in which the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) has made a negative decision after a new examination Refugee Council. (...) The conflict escalated at the beginning of December after the failed deportation of a Somali from a church asylum in a Bremen parish. The authorities wanted to return the man to Finland as part of the European Dublin procedure due to a negative BAMF decision. However, according to the Bremen interior authority, this was prevented by "up to 100 partially masked people" in the church's living quarters (...) In the current dispute, the Bremen administrative court has now given one The Somali man's urgent application was accepted. It obliged the Bamf to refrain from taking any "measures to terminate his residence permit" until the residence legal action brought by the man had been legally concluded.The fact that he went to a church asylum was not an escape. He is available. During the conversation with Mäurer on Thursday, the church leaders also agreed, according to joint information, to have "discussions with the parishes about the numbers and how to deal with church asylum." Granting it should “remain an exceptional case” in order to preserve the instrument for the future. There will no longer be cross-border church asylum. Bremen communities will therefore only accept people who previously lived in Bremen…” Report from December 20, 2024 in New Germany online 
  • Bremen Refugee Council: Respect church asylum instead of undermining it through authoritarian 'agreements'
    "When there is talk of a political agreement in a democratic constitutional state, the basic prerequisite is that all those involved in a conflict sit at the same table and approach each other. The "agreement" on church asylum announced by Interior Senator Mäurer is completely different. The people in the church asylum, the communities that protect and support them, and the over 2,000 solidarity Bremen residents who defended the church asylum with their solidarity presence over the past two weeks were excluded from these discussions. You only found out about it and the results from the newspaper and a PM from the senator. “The so-called ‘agreement’ amounted to the authoritarian announcement of a verdict,” said Nazanin Ghafouri from the Refugee Council. “There can be no talk of an ‘agreement’ because the Interior Senator only admitted what he was forced to do anyway: a temporary suspension of violent deportations from the church asylum, which obviously could not be enforced against the city society.” On the other hand, according to Mäurer's account, unnamed church leaders have promised extensive concessions, which, however, should be adhered to and implemented by others, namely the autonomous church communities that were not invited. A look at the content shows that the management of the BEK and the Lower Saxony Confederation only knows about church asylum from their desks: Church asylum should remain the exception. To do this, however, one would have had to speak to the BAMF about its decision-making practices.What is left out is that an increase in the number of cases is not an initiative of the parishes, but rather a necessary reaction to the implementation of the inhumane Dublin rules and the increasingly racist European border regime. (…) Further discussions are planned in which the Senator for the Interior apparently wants to have a say in the criteria for church asylum: If this were accepted, there would soon be no more church asylum, because the Senator for the Interior Mäurer has made it clear that he wants to undermine church asylum and restructure the parishes as shelters for refugees into deportation locations. To do this, he looked for supposedly suitable people to talk to. “After weeks of clearly formulating the demands of urban society and the positions of the parishes in the interests of those seeking protection, we can only see this ‘agreement’ as an authoritarian and disrespectful announcement – ​​and not least as a populist Trojan horse from the right,” said Nazanin Ghafouri. However, this calculation will not work. After almost three intensive weeks of the solidarity fight for church asylum, those affected, the church communities and their supporters know exactly what is at stake: defending human dignity and human rights against racist populism and authoritarian bureaucracy!..." Statement from the Bremen Refugee Council from December 20, 2024 before the rally on December 20th, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. in Domsheide
• Ayub I. can leave the church asylum in Bremen: Court prohibits deportation for the time being, transfer deadline extended by 1 year, Interior Senator rages 
  • Interior Senator rages. Church asylum in Bremen: Court prohibits deportation for the time being
    “An attempted deportation from a community center in Bremen recently sparked strong criticism. Bremen's Interior Senator rages and warns of consequences for church asylum. Meanwhile, his authority suffered a clear defeat in court. (…) However, as a decision by the administrative court in Bremen in an expedited procedure shows, the church asylum recently ensured that the 25-year-old Somali Ayub I was not deported prematurely. According to the Bremen Refugee Council, Bremen judges have initially banned the deportation. The court ordered on Monday that measures to end Ayub I's stay should be refrained from, the refugee council said. This means he cannot be deported before the court has made a final decision in the main proceedings. He could even leave the church asylum during this time. (…) The Bremen Migration Office then informed the Bamf and suggested extending the transfer period according to the Dublin procedure, as a spokesman for the Interior Authority confirmed. The Bamf extended the deadline on Friday by one year until December 7, 2025.”Report from December 10th, 2024 in Migazin 
  • Information and corrections on the attempted breach of the church asylum in Bremen
    “At the beginning of December 2024, the police and the migration office tried to break the Bremen church asylum on behalf of the Interior Senator. Interior Senator Mäurer and now Mayor Bovenschulte have made several misleading and false claims. We document and comment on this here. This text was published on December 6th. created and supplemented several times since then…”Contribution to the Bremen Refugee Council 
  • See last:Rally “Hands off the church asylum – Ayub stays!”
    Sunday, December 8th  |  Start: 11:30 a.m. Zionsgemeinde Kornstraße 31 | Rally location: Leibnizplatz 12:00 p.m
• “Hands off church asylum – preserve protection for refugees!” After the latest breach of church asylum in Bremen, a petition for the Interior Ministers Conference 2024 
  • Open letter to the Interior Ministers Conference 2024
    …The protection of church asylum is a concern for parishes and representatives of civil society: over 68,000 people have used our WeAct! Petition “Hands off church asylum – preserve protection for refugees!” signed. We would have liked to present the petition to you personally at the IMK. Instead, we are now turning to you in this open letter to draw your attention to the concerns of over 68,000 signatories. The church asylum has been under increasing pressure for several months. Authorities disregarded the church's protective space - there were deportations and attempted deportations, other parishes report threats from the immigration authorities to forcibly end church asylum. None of this happens in a vacuum!…”Open letter from December 4, 2024 to BAG Asyl in der Kirche e.V. to
  • Petition to Campact to Nancy Faeser, Federal Minister of the Interior & the Interior Ministers of the federal states: Hands off church asylum – preserve protection for refugees!
  • Interior Ministers' Conference: The list of horrors for refugees
    “Migration policy will be discussed at the Interior Ministers’ Conference. The current proposals are morally wrong and legally questionable. (…) The draft resolution that Brandenburg and some CDU-led states drew up before the Interior Ministers' Conference is a list of horrors: rejections at the external borders, reductions in benefits and reductions in legal remedies in asylum procedures, which should best be outsourced to third countries anyway, are just some of the demands. So more isolation and as much misery as possible for everyone who comes anyway. Not only is all of this morally wrong and legally questionable, it also threatens to steer the public debate in a direction that completely misses what is really relevant…”Comment by Frederik Eikmanns from December 4th, 2024 in the taz online 
  • Bremen stop deportations and defend church asylum
    “…On the second evening after the failed deportation attempt, around 500 people gathered in the rooms of the Zion community center to show solidarity with Ayub, who was born in Somalia, many of whom stayed overnight. This time the night passed quietly and without incident, indicating that the presence of Bremen's civil society appears to be having an impact. People and organizations nationwide are also becoming aware of the attack on the institution of church asylum and are showing solidarity with the civil resistance…" From theContribution by Anna Ferrer and Esther Klein from December 5th, 2024 at Class against Class 
• “Breaking taboo”: Police try to break church asylum in Bremen – failed due to broad, practical solidarity – Interior Senator threatens consequences
  • “Breaking taboo”: Police try to break church asylum in Bremen
    “In Bremen, the authorities and the church are actually in close contact when it comes to church asylum cases. On Tuesday night, the police tried to break into a church asylum for the first time in order to deport a refugee to Finland. The Bremen interior authorities tried in vain on Tuesday night to end a church asylum in Bremen Neustadt. Police forces wanted to take a 25-year-old Somali man out of the church asylum in the Protestant Zion community center between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., as Pastor Thomas Lieberum confirmed to the “Evangelical Press Service” that morning. This was peacefully prevented by around 100 citizens with bells ringing. “We are horrified that the authorities in Bremen apparently no longer respect church asylum,” said the pastor. Radio Bremen’s “buten un binnen Online” first reported on the incident. (…) Pastor Lieberum described the incident as a “breaking of a taboo”. The parish has always cooperated closely with the authorities. He doesn't know of any case in the past in which church asylum in Bremen was not accepted. "We hope that the authorities will not make another attempt to breach the asylum. But we will continue to be on guard in the coming nights."
    According to a spokesman for the Bremen Evangelical Church, there are currently twelve church asylums in the Hanseatic city. In the entire year of 2024 there were more than 100: “That was a huge increase compared to previous years.” (…)
    It was only at the end of November that the CEO of Asylum in the Church, Dietlind Jochims, warned of a danger to church asylum due to the more restrictive European asylum policy. According to her, since 2015/16, almost exclusively people in asylum have been those affected by so-called Dublin deportations. Another EU country in which they were first registered is actually responsible for their asylum procedure. In addition, the federal working group has already recorded eight evictions from church asylums by the police since the summer of 2023…”Report from December 3rd, 2024 in Migazin 
  • Broad, practical solidarity with the church asylum in Bremen
    “The attempt by Interior Senator Mäurer and his SPD to break the church asylum in Bremen is countered by a very broad, diverse and determined solidarity with the refugees in the church asylum.
    Late yesterday evening, almost 500 people gathered in the affected parish to specifically discuss how they could support Ayub I and the parish that protected him and thus prevent the deportation. Many of them spent the entire night in church again. In total, almost 1,000 Bremen residents have now joined forces to continue to stand together against the police and the migration office in the next few days. People from different backgrounds are joining every minute.
    Interior Senator Mäurer confuses his claim to want to enforce an absurdly inappropriate and obsolete regulation in an authoritarian and violent manner with “the rule of law”. However, the decisive criterion for constitutional action is proportionality. How can it be proportionate to send numerous government employees and police officers on the hunt for days and nights after people who are only accused of being in the supposedly wrong place?The Dublin procedure sees people not as individuals with relationships, hopes, wishes and fears, but as objects to be distributed. If the Dublin procedure “worked”, almost all asylum procedures would have to be carried out at Europe’s external borders. (…)
    Last night, the police and migration office made no further attempt to break into a church asylum in Bremen for the first time in many years. However, it is to be feared that another attack on this church asylum and further attacks on the church asylum in general are planned for the next few days and nights.
    An unexpectedly large number of people in Bremen agree that they will not allow that!The Refugee Council is once again calling on the Bremen Senate, Mayor Bovenschulte and the governing parties to stop the police and the migration office:Hands off church asylum! Stop deportation!“Press release from December 4, 2024 from the Bremen Refugee Council and there previously on December 3, 2024:Senate tries to break the church asylum in Bremen 
  • Bremen: Controversy after prevented deportation from church asylum
    “A night-time operation in a Bremen community center sparks strong criticism. Authorities are said to have tried to revoke the church asylum. The Senator for the Interior vehemently contradicts the representation. The church counters. (…) According to the responsible interior department, up to 100 people, some of whom were masked, prevented the Somalian from being transferred back to Finland. "The action violates a valid agreement. The state and churches urgently need to talk about this," said Interior Senator Mäurer. (…) Accordingly, after intensive examination, the Federal Office decided that the man had to return in accordance with the Dublin rules. The office remained there even after a review requested by the church. “We and the churches have to accept this decision,” said Mäurer. If that doesn't happen, the church would fundamentally question the rule of law. “The fact that the parish continued to ring the bells in the middle of the night after successfully preventing it cannot be surpassed in terms of cynicism and certainly not in the spirit of most Bremen residents.”
    This was contradicted by Lars Ackermann from the Bremen-based Asylum Association, which examines church asylum cases in advance. The fact that church asylum must be ended if the Bamf rejects it is not stated in the 2015 agreement. The Bamf changed this unilaterally. The Somali also reported impressively about “pushbacks” on the Russian-Finnish border. He was driven into the other country several times by gunfire from both sides. Pushbacks are illegal and contrary to international law. They alone justified church asylum.
    According to the Evangelical Church, this was the first attempt in Bremen to have the authorities abolish church asylum. The Bremen Refugee Council said the 25-year-old had been staying in the parish for months out of fear of being deported. He fears that the measure will ultimately lead him back to Somalia…”Report from December 4th, 2024 in Migazin 
• Deportation mania is increasingly ignoring protection zones: authorities are breaking up church asylum and investigating women's shelters - now also deportation from the women's shelter in Hamburg
  "In an increasingly anti-immigrant social mood, refugees are increasingly exposed to fear, uncertainty and despair. That is why the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD) is also dealing with the topic at its synod in Würzburg, which begins on Sunday. In Neumünster on Friday, the Schleswig-Holstein Refugee Council invited people to a "church asylum specialist day". You would feel a climate that was becoming harsher, reported Dietlind Jochims, Refugee and human rights officer for the Northern Church, which includes Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, also confirms this. "Let's not kid ourselves: the number of deportations will increase and with it our challenges. We are also reaching our limits," said Dethloff (...) Recently, the red-green-governed city-state in Hamburg broke another taboo - for observers, a sign for the upcoming state elections in the Hanseatic city on March 2nd. This affected a 28-year-old Turkish woman who found shelter from her violent ex-partner in a Hamburg women's shelter. She routinely wanted to extend her residence permits at the Hamburg immigration office, but was taken into custody there taken and deported to Austria, not without first putting pressure on her to reveal the women's shelter that gave her shelter.The BAMF had previously rejected the 28-year-old's asylum application and ordered her to be returned to Austria, the EU country responsible for her asylum application according to the Dublin Convention. There she now runs the risk of running into her ex-partner again. There has never been such a deportation from the women's shelter in Hamburg…”Article by Dieter Hanisch from November 10th, 2024 in ND online 
• Church asylum in Bielefeld broken after sneaking out of the immigration office in order to deport a traumatized man to Georgia (on World Refugee Day!)
  • Church asylum broken to deport mentally ill 24 year old
    “A 24-year-old man was arrested and taken to deportation detention in Büren, even though he had been accepted into a church asylum in Bielefeld. The person seeking protection is threatened with deportation to Georgia. He experienced violence there, which led to the development of a serious mental illness. Action is currently being taken against the threatened deportation before the Minden Administrative Court.
    The arrest warrant stated that the person seeking protection had “gone into hiding” even though the church asylum had been reported to the immigration authorities. Again, hypocritical reasons are being presented to deport people seeking protection! The deportation to Georgia is scheduled to take place next Thursday, on World Refugee Day. We demand: Hands off church asylum! The deportation must be stopped! #StopDeportations“Thread from Seebrücke from June 16, 2024 
  • “In #Bielefeld, a refugee in a church asylum was arrested off the street when he was recognized by an employee of the immigration office while walking through the city with his sister.There are few things more vile than employees of the deportation authorities.”Tweet from Antinationale Linke Bielefeld from June 16, 2024 as a (correct) answer to that
• Authorities and police are increasingly violating church asylum, most recently against the family of a Russian conscientious objector in the Uelzen district 
  • After protests: Lower Saxony no longer wants to carry out deportations from church asylum
    “The deportation of a family from the church asylum in Bienenbüttel causes protests. Now the responsible federal authority, the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and the church met for discussions. No more deportations should be made from church asylum. Bamf is being criticized…”Article by Christina Sticht from May 28, 2024 in Migazin 
  • Red-green state government breaks church asylum in Bienenbüttel (Uelzen district)
    “On the night of May 12th to 13th, 2024, the police entered the community rooms of the St. Michaelis parish in Bienenbüttel around 11 p.m. with a search warrant and forcibly removed a Russian conscientious objector, his wife, adult son and 16-year-old daughter from the church asylum. Around 15 officers and six cars were involved in the arrest. The rectory, for which there was also a search warrant, was cordoned off.The Lower Saxony Refugee Council expresses its horror: "The last church asylum eviction in Lower Saxony before 2024 took place in Glandorf-Schwege near Osnabrück in 1998. Since then, all state governments have refrained from forcible entry into church asylum spaces. It obviously took a red-green state government to break this taboo in Lower Saxony. The last inhibitions are being put in place to enforce the announced "deportation offensive". filed.”…”Report from the Lower Saxony Refugee Council from May 14, 2024 , see also
    • “Taboo broken”: Lower Saxony breaks church asylum for a Russian family
      “For years, the authorities in Lower Saxony respected church asylums. For several months there have been reports of arrests and deportations from church asylum. Now it hit a Russian family who sought refuge in Uelzen because of the Russian war. The police and the Lower Saxony state reception authority have closed a church asylum for a Russian family. The family of four was deported to Spain on Sunday evening, as the Protestant St. Michaelis parish in Bienenbüttel near Uelzen announced on Tuesday. “We are shocked by the actions of the state reception authority,” said Pastor Tobias Heyden to the Evangelical Press Service“…”Report from May 15, 2024 in Migazin 
  • Authorities and police are increasingly breaking church asylum: Research for the netzpolitik.org podcast “System Settings” shows how the state is increasingly breaking church asylum
    "... In Germany, church asylum is increasingly encountering state resistance. Authorities want to deport people even though they are under the protection of the church. For a long time, it was considered hardly conceivable that the police would storm church buildings for this purpose. Now there have been six attempted or completed evictions from church asylum since the summer of 2023 alone. According to research by netzpolitik.org for the podcast "System Settings", these are more evictions within ten months than in the entire previous ten years. The most recent evacuation took place last Sunday in the Uelzen district in Lower Saxony. A Russian family was deported directly from church asylum. It was the first eviction of a church asylum in the state since 1998, says the state refugee council. Shortly before Christmas, a special operations team was even deployed to clear a church asylum in Schwerin. According to figures from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, churches in Germany granted temporary protection to refugees in around 1,500 cases last year. (…) Leading church representatives expressed their deep concern to netzpolitik.org that the state is now also deporting people seeking protection from church asylums. “We appeal to the immigration authorities to respect church asylum,” says the President of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Anna-Nicole Heinrich. (…) “Measures aimed at deportation from church asylum contradict the spirit of the agreement between BAMF and churches,” says Jesuit Dieter Müller, deputy chairman of the ecumenical federal working group on asylum in the church.(…) The Berlin bishop and EKD representative for the issue of escape, Christian Stäblein, points out the history of church asylum in Germany (…) “We will protect people”. Stäblein also asserts that many court decisions prove the churches right. In court, most people would still be given the right to remain after church asylum. This shows that the churches are intervening humanitarianally in the right sense. (…) The protection of people is not only essential for Christians, explains Latzel - and refers to the Basic Law: “If we celebrate 75 years of the Basic Law this year, then the individual right to asylum is an essential part of it.” (…) The current episode of the netzpolitik.org documentary podcast “System Settings” is also about the state’s resistance to church asylum. The episode “Razzia im Parsonage” follows pastor Sandra Menzel from Büchenbeuren in Rhineland-Palatinate. In 2018, together with several other congregations, it granted church asylum to refugees from Sudan. For Sandra Menzel, this was practical charity - for the district administrator of the Rhein-Hunsrück district, however, it was cause for criminal charges. He reported Menzel and several colleagues, with serious consequences. The pastors' houses were searched. The public prosecutor's office confiscated data from work and private computers and smartphones - despite warnings that they could also contain pastorally sensitive data from parishioners. A court later declared the house searches unlawful. The proceedings against the pastors for aiding and abetting unauthorized residence were also discontinued. The research shows: These cases were no exception.Since the course in the European Union and Germany has once again been aimed at tightening asylum law, state resistance to church asylum has also been increasing..." Contribution by Ingo Dachwitz from May 17, 2024 at Netzpolitik.org 
• Don't betray the refugees! Call from the Ecumenical Federal Working Group on Asylum in the Church against the CDU's plans to, among other things, abolish church asylum
  “In its new policy program, the CDU plans to abolish the right to asylum in Europe. Every person who applies for asylum in Europe should be deported directly to a so-called “safe third country”. This is against every law - and should become the program of the CDU.If this disenfranchisement occurs at the CDU federal party conference on June 6th-8th. If it is decided in May 2024, this is the plan of a party that may provide the next Chancellor. There has been no public scandal so far. And our church leaders are also silent. That's why we as pastors and theologians take responsibility, open our mouths for the mute and say what needs to be said: the CDU's asylum policy plans are unchristian!..”Appeal for asylum in the church , see also thisPM dated 5/6/24 : “More than 700 pastors and theologians sign the BAG’s call for asylum in the church”
• Brochure church asylum in Lower Saxony - handout for those affected, supporters and communities
  “The Lower Saxony Refugee Council has the brochure Church asylum in Lower Saxony – handout for those affected, supporters and communities adapted to current developments in a second edition. The brochure explains the orderly procedure that has been agreed between the church leaders and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and what needs to be taken into account.Church spaces are not “legally exempt”; arresting those seeking protection would also be legally permissible in church spaces. For good reasons, however, the Lower Saxony state government has refrained from deporting people who seek protection in church communities since the mid-1990s. We assume that this commitment will continue to apply…”Report from May 8, 2024 to the Lower Saxony Refugee Council 
• Unreasonable deportations: The number of church asylums has increased significantly - little rethinking by the authorities
  “The number of church asylums continued to rise in 2023. 1,514 cases were reported to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees last year, according to a response from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to a request from left-wing MP Clara Bünger, which was available to the “Evangelical Press Service”. In the previous year, the number of reported church asylums was 1,243; in 2021 there were 822 cases. As the figures also show, the cases rarely lead to success through official channels. Last year, the Federal Office only made use of the so-called right of intervention in nine cases, meaning that it assumed responsibility for the person seeking protection for whose asylum procedure another EU country would actually have been responsible. The vast majority of cases in church asylum are about preventing a transfer to another EU state. Even in previous years, the number of self-admissions was low. (…) In 313 cases in 2023, the request not to deport a person associated with church asylum was rejected. More than 1,100 cases were resolved in other ways, “mainly due to the expiry of the transfer period,” as the answer states. If this period expires, Germany is automatically responsible for the asylum procedure. It is usually six months. If the person in question is considered “absconding”, the period may be extended to 18 months. A political attempt to apply this to church asylums was reprimanded in court. The Federal Administrative Court pointed out that the whereabouts of the people in church asylum are known…”Report from March 27, 2024 in MiGAZIN 
• Brutal police operation in Schwerin to deport 2 sons of the family of 6 of a women's rights activist known in Afghanistan from church asylum
  • Police operation in Schwerin: deportation attempt in parish escalates
    "... When trying to pick up two men for a planned deportation, the police encountered resistance on Wednesday morning in the Schwerin district of Mueßer Holz. According to a police spokeswoman, two 18 and 22 year old men were to be deported. However, the situation developed differently than planned because a woman tried to prevent this, said the spokeswoman. She was in a psychological state of emergency. A male person was found in the premises by police with cuts. Both were According to the police, criminal proceedings were initiated against the woman for threats and coercion in Germany. However, the issuing of the visa was delayed because, according to the information, the family's life was increasingly at risk in Afghanistan and their health had also deteriorated, the family fled to Iran and from there reached Europe with a Spanish visa (...) The bishop in the district of Schleswig and Holstein, Nora Steen, emphasized that a threatening and escalating situation like that on Wednesday morning had “massively retraumatized” the family unreasonable.“I ask all responsible authorities to respect the protective space of church asylum.” The Northern Church's refugee representative, Dietlind Jochims, said: "Here the protective space of a severely traumatized family who was threatened with death in their homeland was violated." The church asylum had been granted since last Friday and, in accordance with common practice, all relevant authorities had been informed…” Report from December 20, 2023 at tagesschau.de 
  • Breaking of a church asylum in Schwerin: “What a Christmas present for refugees and their supporters!”
    "For the first time ever, the red line was crossed in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and a church asylum was broken by the police. The Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Refugee Council strongly criticizes the actions of the authorities. In this case, two adult sons of an Afghan family of six should be deported to Spain separately from the family. The situation escalated on site, so that the police broke into the rooms. This is a frightening signal to refugees who are seeking protection in Germany. Not once at Christmas they can feel safe. This signal is also aimed at church communities that are now unsure whether they can continue to offer refugees refuge and hope. Church asylum is the temporary admission of refugees in church premises who are at risk of life and limb or violations of their human rights if deported (...) Nationwide figures as of December 5th, 2023 according to BAG Asylum in the Church: We currently know of 455 active church asylums with at least 643 people, around 105 of whom are children. 428 of the church asylums are so-called Dublin cases. In 2023, 534 church asylums with 776 people have already been terminated. Press release from the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Refugee Council from December 20, 2023 
  • Nationwide threat to church asylum practice: violent breach of church asylum in Schwerin
    Joint press release from December 21, 2023 the deportation reporting NRW and the Ecumenical Network Asylum in the Church NRW
• Deportation prevented after protests: Kurdish couple from the broken church asylum in Lobberich/Hinsbeck are released from detention pending deportation
  “In response to widespread civil society protest, the city of Viersen stopped the transfer of the Kurdish couple, who had found church asylum in the Evangelical Church Community of Lobberich/Hinsbeck (city of Nettetal, Viersen district, North Rhine-Westphalia) since May 2023. The church asylum was forcibly evacuated by the ABH Viersen on July 10, 2023. After the deportation had to be canceled on the way to the airport for medical reasons, the two Iraqi citizens were taken into detention in Darmstadt. A new attempt at a so-called Dublin transfer of the couple to Poland was initially planned for Tuesday, July 25, 2023. After being released from deportation detention, the Kurdish couple can return to the Evangelical Church Community of Lobberich/Hinsbeck…”Press release from the Ecumenical Network Asylum in the Church in North Rhine-Westphalia and Ökum. BAG Asylum in the Church from July 24th, 2023 
• First the church asylum was broken, now there is a threat of deportation: the couple cannot be deported to Poland! 
  “First they were forcibly dragged out of the church asylum and put into deportation detention, now they are to be deported tomorrow (Tuesday July 25th): PRO ASYL, the Ecumenical Network Asylum in the Church in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Federal Working Group on Asylum in the Church are protesting against the planned deportation of a severely traumatized couple to Poland, criticizing this brutal breach of church asylum that has been unique for years and calling on the authorities not to deport the couple and instead to reopen the case check. Church asylums must continue to be protected spaces that are taboo for the authorities, so that those in need of protection feel safe in church spaces and can trust that their cases will be examined conscientiously. (…)
  But in Poland the couple are not only threatened with detention camps with barred windows and barbed wire fences, but also with the denial of legal and medical help and thus conditions that violate human rights.  "Poland has a massive problem with the rule of law, which is particularly evident in the treatment of fleeing people that violates human rights. Those seeking protection are systematically locked in camps that are worse than prisons - just because they have applied for asylum. This is not about individual failures or misconduct by individual responsible people, but about systematic violations of European and international law," says Wiebke Judith, legal policy spokeswoman for the human rights organization PRO ASYL.
  The couple also experienced violence from Polish security forces on the Polish-Belarusian border and are now living in a deportation prison in great fear of being deported to Poland…”Press release from July 24, 2023 by Pro Asyl, Ökum. BAG Asylum in the Church and Ecumenism. Asylum Network in the Church of North Rhine-Westphalia – see the history directly below:
• Network Asylum in the Church NRW criticizes the eviction of a church asylum in Nettetal and the behavior of the immigration authorities 
  "... After the eviction of a church asylum in Nettetal, North Rhine-Westphalia, there is criticism of the behavior of the immigration authorities. The Federal Working Group on Asylum in the Church (BAG) spoke of a one-off event. "We are surprised. There is an agreement between churches and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) that actually excludes evictions," said Dieter Müller, deputy chairman of the Federal Working Group, to the "Evangelical Press Service". The last time a church asylum was ended was in Augsburg in 2014. This case ultimately led to the agreement, he explained. Refugees in church asylum receive a toleration status, and church congregations must submit a dossier to the Federal Office for each case. If the re-examination of the case is negative, the refugees will lose their residence status. But even then there will be no evictions from church asylums, said Müller. The federal working group called for a thorough review of this official approach. The couple, who came from Iraq, were arrested early on Monday morning during an unannounced house search in the community center of the Lobberich-Hinsbeck Protestant parish in Nettetal. The immigration authorities in Viersen took action because the couple was last registered there. However, the subsequent attempt to transfer the couple from Düsseldorf Airport to Poland was aborted by the federal police because the woman suffered a collapse. (…) According to the city of Viersen, the couple is now in the Darmstadt deportation detention center. It fled Iraq in 2021 and had been living in church asylum since the end of May 2023.The city of Viersen said on Friday that the transfer to Poland would continue for the time being. According to the Asylum in the Church of North Rhine-Westphalia network, the couple's lawyer has submitted an urgent application to prevent the transfer..." Report from July 16, 2023 in MiGAZIN 
• Acquittal for religious sister for church asylum in the second instance
  "... The Franciscan nun Juliana Seelmann has been acquitted by the Würzburg Regional Court in the appeal proceedings because of a granted church asylum. The public prosecutor's office had previously withdrawn the appeal against a judgment of the Würzburg District Court in this case, said a spokesman for the Regional Court. The court therefore referred to a decision of the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court of February 25, 2022 in a comparable case. Seelmann had granted church asylum to two Nigerian women in the monastery of the Oberzell Franciscan Sisters near Würzburg, but the district court issued a “warning with reservation of punishment” against them. She was supposed to pay 500 euros to a charitable organization in connection with the warning. Both Seelmann and the Würzburg public prosecutor's office appealed after the decision in the summer of 2021. The accused nun had invoked her Christian faith and her conscience in court from the beginning. The fact that the appeal before the Würzburg regional court was not scheduled for months was due to the proceedings in which the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court decided in February. There, the judges confirmed the Kitzingen district court's acquittal of church asylum for the Benedictine monk Brother Abraham Sauer from the Münsterschwarzach Abbey. The judge at the Würzburg regional court referred to the highest court decision from Bamberg right at the beginning of the appeal hearing on Thursday. Report from July 19, 2022 from and at MiGAZIN 
• Bayreuth District Court: Pastor is convicted of granting church asylum - his lawyer speaks of an exotic decision 
  "Two years of probation and a fine of 1,500 euros: This is the verdict of the Bayreuth district court on Monday against the Pegnitz Methodist pastor Stefan Schörk because he granted church asylum to a young Iranian. A spokesman for the Bayreuth district court confirmed the verdict to the "Evangelical Press Service" on Monday when asked. The pastor's lawyer, Michael Brenner, said that this was merely a warning with a penalty clause - a very rare case law these days. Nevertheless, they are considering appealing the verdict. Brenner said he was surprised by the “exotic” verdict, as there are currently several trials on the subject of church asylum at the Bavarian Higher Regional Court. “This is generally about the criminal liability of church asylum.” (…) The Iranian integrated in Germany, who also speaks fluent German, should be separated from his mother and sister and deported back to Greece in accordance with the Dublin procedure. The family and the priest feared that he would have had to live on the streets without accommodation or care…” Report from November 9, 2021 from and at MiGAZIN 
• [Seehofer gives in late] BAMF relaxes rules for church asylum again 
  "The interior ministers had increased the hurdles for church asylum to such an extent that help for hardship cases became almost impossible. Following court rulings, the Federal Office is now relaxing the rules again. The “Asylum in the Church” working group reacts with relief. (…) As the authorities announced on Thursday in Nuremberg, those seeking protection in church asylum are no longer considered “fugitives” if their whereabouts are known. As a result, the so-called transfer period is usually no longer extended to 18 months. This expansion made church asylum almost impossible and was questioned by the courts. The extension of the deadline was based on a decision by the federal and state interior ministers in 2018. It was about Dublin cases in church asylum, i.e. people seeking protection for whose admission and procedure another EU state would actually be responsible. If a transfer is not carried out within six months, responsibility automatically passes to the German authorities. In order to make it more difficult to “wait out” the deadline, the interior ministers decided to extend it. (…) The basis for this was a regulation in the Dublin Regulation that allows an extension of the deadline if the asylum seeker is considered “absconding”. According to the churches, the extension of the deadline for church asylum became the norm after the Interior Minister's decision. Last summer, the Federal Administrative Court expressed doubts about the practice, as the whereabouts of those seeking protection in church asylum are usually known. This decision by the Federal Administrative Court as well as other higher court case law will now be implemented, said a Bamf spokesman.However, he also emphasized that a church asylum should be left if the authorities decide that there is no particular, individual hardship. “Compliance with these basic rules is essential in order to maintain and further strengthen the acceptance of church asylum among authorities, courts and the public,” he said...”Read the full story at the source

  Source: labournet.de