Asylum: Greens and Linke demand the resignation of Bamf boss Sommer

Domicists of Greens and Leftists are calling for the resignation of the President of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Hans-Eckhard Sommer. The background is that he has spoken out for a radical change of course in asylum policy – away from the examination of individual asylum applications, towards humanitarian recordings and contingents.

The BAMF is subject to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The executive minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) does not adopt the Sommer’s statement at a press conference on migration issues. However, she does not announce personnel consequences. When asked by a journalist, whether she will talk to the head of the authorities about his proposal, Faeser only replies: “I always speak to Mr. Sommer.”

Her party colleague, the member of the Bundestag Ralf Stegner, tells the “Handelsblatt”: “Such public statements by a head of the authorities contradict his responsibility, presumably violate the duties and generally result in personnel consequences.”

The Saxon Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU), on the other hand, praised the BAMF president’s push. He said: “This is a very constructive contribution to the debate of one of the most knowledgeable asylum experts in our country.” With the change from the current system of a subjective right to claim to an objective law in the sense of an institute guarantee, the state would continue to grant asylum, but would no longer be a more incapable right for an indefinite number of people.

“The mechanism that an asylum application on the border already enables irregular entry would be broken,” said Schuster. With a humanitarian contingent system on a considerable size, Germany could introduce a “flexible upper limit”. The principle of asylum could remain as a state goal in the Basic Law. The scope and design would then be transferred to the legislator, said Schuster, whom the CDU had appointed to its team for the coalition negotiations on questions of internal security.

Sommer said on Monday at an event at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation that it was wrong to adhere to individual asylum law and to hope for positive effects of the reform of the common European asylum system (GEAS). According to his words, it would make more sense to replace the current system with humanitarian recordings “in considerable amounts”. In addition to humanitarian points of view, the ability to integrate the labor market can also play a role here. Anyone who is still unauthorized to enter Germany would then have no view of a right to stay. Sommer, who is a member of the CSU, had emphasized at the beginning of his speech not to speak as a BAMF president, but to present his “personal assessment” and a summary of his experience.

“The fact that a President of a German Federal Authority questions the applicable German law and international law cannot be sustainable for a rule of law,” says Filiz Polat, the migration expert of the Green Group. “BAMF President Sommer qualified for resignation with his statements on the abolition of individual asylum law and the proposal to change the Geneva Refugee Convention.”

The member of the Bundestag Clara Bünger (left) criticizes that Faeser did not deduct the BAMF President used by her predecessor Horst Seehofer (CSU) in 2018 when she took office. “Anyone who, as the chief of the authorities, makes the core task of their own office to carry out individual asylum tests, is out of date, untrainly, superfluous or even wrong, should withdraw from their post.” The Green politician Lamya Kaddor called Sommer’s ideas adventurous. Above all, it is irritating that Sommer was very well announced as head of the foundation at the event of the foundation.