Anyone who takes in a foreign child deserves all the help – right? Unfortunately wrong, says a foster mother.
No child without a passport! That was the one request that my wife and I made to the youth welfare office before our foster son came into our family three months ago. We are already foster parents of two and have a lot of experience. That’s why we knew about the bureaucratic problems that often arise with foreign foster children. When we saw our son for the first time, we were informed by the youth welfare office that the passport matters had been resolved.
But then it was a child without a passport. Of course we could have said at that moment that we didn’t want him. But we had already held this little worm in our arms for a long time, its frightened and at the same time calm eyes had stolen its way into our hearts. This child, who initially held himself so stiffly and anxiously against us, had already become calm and content, simply because we were with him. We had never experienced such incredible frugality from a child before. The problems with the passport seem insignificant compared to the great love you feel.
Frustration of many foster parents: “We spend our days calling the authorities”
Today, those quiet concerns have grown into loud worries. In the bureaucratic state of Germany, there is a regulation for everything, but no fixed way in which a foreign foster child without a passport can obtain an identity. The biological mother fled the war in Ukraine and gave birth to the child in Germany. It is still unclear whether she will stay in Germany. What is clear is that she cannot provide adequate care here, so the little one is with us for long-term care. Our son was born in Germany, has a German birth certificate – but no passport.
We are therefore first trying to apply for Ukrainian citizenship. To do this, our child needs a so-called apostille, a certified copy of the German birth certificate, which we have to submit to the Ukrainian consulate. Apostille authorities include, for example, the Federal Office of Foreign Affairs and other immigration authorities in every federal state. However, it is not clearly regulated which authority or office should issue this to us. Whether they issue these is regulated differently in every federal state, in every municipality and municipality. For us this means: For months now, our days have consisted of making phone calls to possibly responsible authorities and our evenings sending emails to immigration authorities all over Germany. Only to find out the next day that you haven’t made any progress and have to start all over again. Nobody feels responsible for providing us with a certified copy. Instead, the offices shift responsibilities back and forth.
Without a passport, our son cannot travel, go on a school trip, or open an account.
Our foster son is currently living with a fictitious certificate, i.e. a temporary residence permit, which expires on September 23rd. Then we have to look for a new one that will be valid for a few months again. It’s frustrating to realize that the system plans to accommodate children, but doesn’t think through what that means: our foster son isn’t allowed to travel without a passport, so we can’t leave Germany or go on vacation until further notice. With his current status, our son won’t be able to go on a school trip later, he won’t be able to open a bank account, and completing an apprenticeship would be significantly complicated. He would not be able to marry and, in the worst case, his own children would also be stateless.
The youth welfare office tries to help us as best as possible – but here too we are helpless. In the end, we always face the same problem: that the immigration authorities let the youth welfare office down. That the immigration authorities let us and our child down.
Many foster parents of foreign foster children feel the same way as we do. There are no uniform regulations for many identity-determining decisions; officials are then allowed to decide at their own discretion whether a foreign foster child born in Germany receives a passport. Some foster parents have been fighting for years to get a birth certificate or citizenship for their child. These children were born in Germany and only know this country, this language, this culture. If they don’t get a German passport, they may face deportation to a foreign country when they grow up.
Together with 80 other foster parents, a lot of expertise comes together.
We have now joined forces with around 80 other foster parents in a Facebook group where we exchange information, experiences and contacts. A certain level of expertise has emerged through hundreds of emails with paragraphs, case studies and experience reports that we have collected as a group. This problem affects foster children from EU countries as well as those from third countries. Some have been fighting for birth certificates, apostilles or passports for years and have become experts in areas that are not actually part of their job: being foster parents.
Many foster families do not dare to go through the difficult process of clarifying their identity. They are afraid that the children could be taken away from their families again because they are too uncomfortable. Some capitulate at some point. This is despite the fact that placing the children in foster families is almost always the primary goal – placement in a home is much more expensive. Foster families are desperately needed, but at the same time their work is being made incredibly difficult.
I hope that the problems will finally be seen and addressed by politicians. That these children finally get an identity. We need standardization in passport matters, clear regulations on how we as foster parents should deal with such cases. These children have no lobby. But they need one.
Our foster son can now laugh the way one-year-olds normally do. If we put him in his bed with a toy, he babbles contentedly and keeps himself busy. When he cries, his two big sisters are there for him and comfort him. And he sleeps through the night as if his body was regaining the peace it hadn’t had for so long.
We would also like this peace and quiet for ourselves as a family. We dream of not having to write endless emails and make phone calls every day, but of being able to enjoy time together as a family. Maybe next year we will all travel together within the EU.
This child deserves a future.
I am particularly afraid of the upcoming federal elections. After the election results from Saxony and Thuringia, I can’t even imagine what that could mean for the residency rights of our foster son and our family. We are not asking for the impossible, but only for his status to be clarified and for him to receive the rights to which he is entitled.
This child deserves a future. It can’t be helped that his birth parents are unable to take care of his passport matters. It is not our fault that bureaucracy and politics are so at odds. This child also has a right to an identity, be it German or Ukrainian.
Note: Upon request of the star Both the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BaMF) and the Office for Foreign Affairs stated that they could not provide any information on these matters because they did not consider themselves responsible. The BaMF referred to the Office for Foreign Affairs. This, in turn, sees the responsibility as lying with the individual states: “The responsibility of the respective domestic authority is a state matter,” the office wrote in an email. We received no answer to the question about a planned standardization of passport matters.
Source: Stern
