Dispute over recording program: Dobrindt defends course when taking Afghans

Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt rejected criticism of playing a temporary time at the Afghanistan recording program. The CSU politician said at the Federal Government’s open day that it could not be expected to solve in a few weeks, which had obviously not taken place for months and years. “I am not ready to do without regular admission procedures, I am not ready to forego security checks.”

Dobrindt continued with regard to the former traffic light government: “This is something that has not been processed for years. I will process it, but I will only process it in such a way that we also have maximum security that we know who comes, why it comes and whether the admission is justified. And if it is not justified, then I will not agree to this recording.”

He asked employees to work again and carry out the admission procedures, including the security checks. “I do it properly and that’s why it will take.” He does not give the perspective that this has been processed in a few weeks. This will take months. If the result of security tests and admission procedures is that there would be a negative decision, these people would not come to Germany. Dobrindt spoke of a inherited problem with a view to the traffic lights.

Criticism of the human rights officer

The Federal Government’s human rights officer, Lars Castellucci (SPD), had asked the Interior Ministry and the Federal Foreign Office to process the admission of endangered Afghans from Pakistan faster. The black and red coalition had agreed on an orderly and humanitarian migration policy, he wrote on the platform X. “The fact that the exams in the case of the Afghanistan recording program would take so long, neither fulfills one nor the other,” he added. Anyone who has received a legally binding promise to enter Germany through the federal admission program Afghanistan must also receive their visa “promptly”, said Castellucci.

It is about around 2,000 Afghans that are considered endangered because they have campaigned for democratic rights or once worked as local forces for the Bundeswehr or for German organizations, and who have a reception commitment from the old traffic light government with their family members. Since the German embassy in Kabul has been closed to the Islamist Taliban in 2021 since the case of Afghanistan, they run through the test procedure in Pakistan. This week, the federal government announced that Pakistan deported around 2,000 around 210 people to their country of origin.