#they hired a lawyer to ~interview family members - he showed up unannounced at their house at 10 am on a workday | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

todaviia · 2 years

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Why does it take hours to write the appeal? What's in the appeal? What's the "asylum agency", are they lawyers as well?

The "asylum agency" are the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF for short), it's the German Federal department for (among other things) vetting asylum claims. There are a lot of lawyers (as in, Juristen = people with a law degree) working there, but it's a normal administration job.

Basically in the German asylum system you first fill out an "Asylantrag" (asylum claim). In this you say where you come from and why you think you should be entitled to protection in Germany (both actual asylum - which refers to people who are personally persecuted - as well as subsidiary protection, which applies to people fleeing from general humanitarian disasters such as war).

Then the BAMF checks your asylum claim. Here is a very good English-language longform article by the Atlantic detailing how the BAMF works and what methods they use. Then they make a decision (Bescheid), which either accepts or rejects the claim (appealing it means you refuse to accept their ruling and try to overturn it).

There's TONS of problems with this. Even legitimate refugees often don't tell the truth or do so in a way that is contradictory bc we're talking about usually super traumatized ppl getting like half an hour to tell the absolute worst and often most intimate parts of their lives to a total stranger and THEN these total strangers judge whether they believe that or not.

And they can be super and I mean SUPER unfair about this. For example for the guy whose appeal I wrote today (let's call him F.), he was asked to describe his situation and he said he knew three other gay guys in his city, that they were the only people who knew about his sexuality and that they all were still closeted and still in Iraq. He gives detailed descriptions their meet-ups, their conversations, generally how they lived (it's literally all in the hearing transcript). The interviewer asked for their names. F. said their first names. The interviewer asked for their full names. F. said he doesn't know them.

In the Bescheid, it says among other things "F. was unable to give details including basic information such as names about the people who supposedly were members of the social group of people who shared his oppression. True accounts of persecution are often characterised by the fact that they are very detailed. His claim is therefore not substantiated."

We're talking about an 18-year old gay kid who just fled a country where he legitimately feared for his life because of his sexuality and who basically had to keep this part of himself secret his whole life, in a conversation with a complete stranger in a position of authority. Of course the fact that he didn't give the full names of his closest friends who still lived in that country in that situation must mean he's lying.

It also says it's contradictory and therefore unbelievable that the father would inform another family member about his son's sexuality because the fact that this would bring dishonor to the family means the father would have kept it a secret. (The "conversation" was the father convincing other male family members to join in and kill him - something which happens regularly in the country if you read up on literally any source dealing with LGBT Iraqis - often even clerics get involved to issue fatwas against them).

All in all, even if he was gay, he should have considered living anonymously in a different part of Iraq rather than come to Germany.

And what takes hours is to dig up reputable and up-to-date sources detailing the status of gay men in Iraq (Here is a heartbreaking report by Human Rights Watch btw), especially concerning the different regions of Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan for example is considered more liberal when it comes to religion, so religious minorities from Iraq just get told to move to Iraqi Kurdistan instead. However, this does NOT apply to sexuality).

Then you try to pad that with other German court decisions abt gay men in Iraq (unfortunately it's mostly lower administrative court decisions, which don't hold much weight - but the VAST majority of them accept gay men from Iraq as legitimate refugees. There's also an ECJ ruling that says gay refugees can not be expected to hide their sexuality in their country of origin, as that would not be expected of straight refugees either and therefore would be discrimination, that's why his chances are quite good bc the Bescheid literally expected that of him) The LSVD has a REALLY great compilation for all sort of different countries of origin.

And then you have to take apart the whole bullshit Bescheid, point out the logical flaws, add other stuff the refugee told you and try to come with proofs for that etc.

It takes A LOT of work.

#also you cant believe what kind of total bullshit sometimes gets written just to keep people out #the absolutely dumbest thing i ever saw was not asylum but spousal-visa related #it was abt ppl from a west african nation who got married in that nation #only to realise fun fact germany automatically assumes all documents from developing countries to be fake #even and especially if its official documents #so it didnt recognize the marriage certificate #and instead started ~verification proceedings via the embassy #(who im pretty sure has no other job except to try and keep ppl out)#they hired a lawyer to ~interview family members - he showed up unannounced at their house at 10 am on a workday #and when the neighbor informed him that the family members were at work and where they worked #he went back home and wrote that family members were not available for interview #so then the embassy wrote they believed its a fake marriage possibly between family members #who seemed to be in on not cooperating in the investigation #(the SECRET investigation which consisted of showing up announced at their house ONCE during work hours)#and that they assume the people were not spouses at all #rather family members #what compelling piece of evidence did they base this completely fucking bogus claim on?#the spouses had the same last name!#EXCEPT THE VAST MAJORITY OF MARRIAGES IN THAT COUNTRY INCLUDING THIS ONE #WAS INTRA-CLAN MARRIAGE #SURNAMES WERE INTRODUCED BY THE COLONISING POWER AND GUESS WHAT THEY JUST BASED THEM ON #if you guessed clan affiliation congratulations #you understand why the vast majority of marriages take place between ppl who had the same surname even before marriage #something which you could find out literally with one google search #or one conversation with anyone from that country #this still took like 2.5 YEARS to resolve

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