A controversial online handbook for avoiding deportation is nearly completely funded by the European Union, it has been revealed. Initially, the instructions provoked concern that they were being paid for by the German government. Under pressure from questions in the Bundestag, officials conceded they did partially fund it, but that 90% of the project funding comes from the EU’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF).
Junge Freiheit reports that Reem Alabali-Radovan (SPD)—federal Commissioner for Integration and for Anti-racism—joined forces with the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and the International Rescue Committee to secure and supply the remaining tenth of co-financing for the project.
In a separate text, publisher New German Media Makers (Vereins Neue Deutsche Medienmacher*innen) advises asylum applicants to detect and utilise their own “serious war trauma” that “has previously remained undetected” in order to stay in Germany.
It could be argued that there is no such thing as a legal loophole, only badly conceived laws, but critics of Handbook Germany‘s funding—such as the non-aligned, ex-Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member Joana Cotar—don’t think either the federal government or the EU should be paying for advice on how to beat the system.
Previously, questions in the Bundestag were asked about whether this publisher is a suitable candidate for public funding, weighing up its possible involvement in the ‘Live Democracy!’ federal programme. One of its founding members in 2008 is Ferda Ataman, who became chairwoman in 2018 and a deputy member of the Advisory Board of the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency. In 2022, the Federal Cabinet nominated her to the Bundestag to be head of the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency.
None of this social justice activism is necessarily surprising from an organisation/publisher which adopted a ‘gender pause’ in its name in March 2021, symbolised by an asterisk allowing non-binary and ‘diverse-gender people between male and female’ to be addressed.
By coming together to use public funds in this way, neither the federal government nor the EU are building confidence that future joint borrowing would be money well spent.
Tragically, there is even more at stake than frugality. Handbook Germany’s quasi-official advice states that asylum applications classified as inadmissible under the Dublin Regulation can restart their six-month transfer periods by submitting a new, urgent application. The same process was used by the Solingen attacker to avoid deportation.
