Germany to Send Home More Rejected Asylum Seekers
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Germany will speed up expulsions of rejected asylum seekers under measures agreed by Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet Wednesday, as controversy rages over sending people back to strife-torn Afghanistan.
Under the new measures, immigration agency officials will also be allowed to access applicants' smartphones or other digital devices in certain cases to help determine their identity and country of origin if they claim to have lost their passport.
AFP quoted German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere as saying that, for example, "if someone has phoned Sudan 90 times and claims to be from Eritrea, then this would give us a clue that the person is actually Sudanese".
In a deportation later Wednesday, some 50 Afghan citizens were set to board a charter plane from Munich, the third such flight since late last year, drawing protests from Amnesty International and left-wing opposition parties.
The EU's top economy -- which has taken in more than one million asylum seekers since 2015 -- last year repatriated some 80,000 people who were denied refugee or asylum status, a process it wants to speed up.
