Prison camps or places of sanctuary? More efficient or restricting asylum seekers' rights? Opinions about Germany’s ‘anchor’ centers remain deeply divided. InfoMigrants visited Bamberg in Bavaria to find out how the center there is working 16 months on.
The regional government of the German state of Bavaria introduced a law requiring migrants to respect the "leading" local culture. Now, opposition party complaints it violated the constitution have been upheld.
The international human rights organization Doctors of the World says it won't continue to run medical clinics at an asylum seeker center in Bavaria. The group says the living conditions in the Anchor Center make it impossible to provide proper treatment.
Since the launch of nine "anchor centers" ("Ankerzentren") in Germany last year, the concept of these holding facilities has been repeatedly criticized by NGOs while the government has called them a success. A new monitoring website lets current and former residents report incidents anonymously.
The 'Infobus' project offers free legal advice to refugees and asylum seekers in Munich. Because their volunteers were banned from offering their service inside reception centers, they went to court. Now, that court has ruled the 'Infobus' may not assist refugees inside the facilities without having been called for help.
Over the next few weeks, around 800 asylum seekers living in the Schweinfurt anchor center in northern Bavaria will move to another former US barracks nearby. Another 300 asylum seekers near Munich will move into a new outpost of the anchor center Manching over the next few days.
The first deportation flight of 2019 took place Monday evening - in total, it was the 20th deportation flight of rejected asylum seekers back to Afghanistan. Pro-asylum groups have called for an end to the controversial flights.
Most asylum seekers at the Schweinfurt anchor center in Bavaria don't have good chances of being allowed to stay in Germany. They come from countries with a low 'protection rate' — regardless of the personal suffering many of the migrants have endured to make it to Europe. InfoMigrants visited the center and talked to its residents.
InfoMigrants visited the Donauwörth 'anchor center' for asylum seekers in Bavaria - one of nine such centers in Germany. Their aim is to accommodate asylum seekers in one place during the entire procedure, from their arrival until their asylum application is decided and they either relocated to another part of Germany or deported. With all the relevant authorities being on site, the process is intended to be faster and more efficient. What's it like to be an asylum seeker there?
Bavaria's new border officers have drawn up some 1,750 criminal and civil charges since coming into force in July. Bavarian ministers hope to expand the controversial unit along the Austrian border to 1,000 officers.
On Tuesday evening, Germany returned around 50 rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan, among them seven convicted criminal offenders. The group, however, also included two young men considered to be suicidal. Who is being deported and on what grounds?
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Bavaria's premier, Markus Söder, supported closing the EU's "external border." Söder said a failure to find a solution to migration would be "a problem for democracy" in Europe.