An alliance is calling for protests in front of immigration authorities across Germany – including in Frankfurt. The organizers want to raise awareness of problems.
The newly founded alliance “no abh Frankfurt” called for a rally in front of the Frankfurt immigration office on Thursday at 5 p.m. According to a statement from the nationwide alliance “Combat Racism – Abolish the Immigration Office,” the action in Frankfurt is part of a nationwide campaign. In ten cities, including Cologne and Münchenprotests are called for under the title “Fight Racism – Abolish Immigration Office”. The actions are to be carried out until October 27th.
The central demand to abolish all immigration authorities is primarily intended to attract attention, as an activist from the Frankfurter Rundschau initiative said. The Frankfurt immigration authority is particularly criticized for the fact that applications from refugees are not processed for a disproportionately long time. The Frankfurt public order office has announced that the number of applications that have not yet been processed is currently around 14,000.
The Frankfurt immigration authority has been struggling with a gigantic backlog of applications for several months. In July, the immigration authority was separated from the city’s public order office and made independent. The aim was to improve the service and resolve the backlog of applications.
In April of this year there were almost 17,000 unprocessed applications. The head of the city of Frankfurt’s public order department, Annette Rinn (FDP), cited a lack of staff as the reason for this. At that time, Rinn announced that in the future they wanted to hire all applicants who had the necessary qualifications.
In order to deal with the backlog of applications, the authority also set up a new online portal in June 2023. Although the online form had been “carefully thought out,” many applicants complained that it was still too complicated.
