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IMMIGRATION

Fingerprints missing for hundreds of refugees

German immigration authorities confirmed on Thursday that there are hundreds of registered asylum seekers who have not yet had their fingerprints or photographs taken.

Fingerprints missing for hundreds of refugees
A refugee being fingerprinted in Thuringia. Photo: DPA.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said that the number of asylum seekers who have not yet gotten their fingerprints or photographs taken is estimated to be in the four-figure range.

The exact number will be counted now that officials have begun an assessment.

The spokeswoman explained that states had reported last year that all registered asylum applicants had been properly recorded.

But since then, BAMF received “subsequent reports” that not all had been completely registered.

Since the end of 2015, all refugees at the borders have been registered either by the federal police or BAMF. If their fingerprints were not taken during this initial registration, they should have been during the asylum application process.

The report comes as BAMF re-examines tens of thousands of positive asylum decisions after it emerged that a German soldier and alleged far-right extremist managed to gain asylum status through a fake identity.

SEE ALSO: Up to 100,000 asylum cases to be checked after German soldier became refugee

The Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that officials will analyze 80,000 to 100,000 cases starting in the summer. The ministry acknowledged that some mistakes had already been found in documentation.

Despite speaking no Arabic, soldier Franco Albrecht had pretended to be a Syrian refugee when he obtained asylum, with the intention of committing a terrorist act that he would then blame on his fake identity, according to investigators.

The case has raised questions about far-right leanings within the military, as well as about the government’s ability to properly handle the roughly one million asylum seekers who have come to Germany over the past two years.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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