Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 3rd, 2012

[Christian Klos]

There is no general assessment that the Roma are refugees. It is an individual assessment and has nothing to do with the ethnic background of a person. So if they are Roma and apply for asylum, they go through the procedure and are evaluated on individual grounds. There is no general policy on the Roma, apart from the normal policy with respect to minority rights.

Here there is certain support, but it has nothing to do with immigration control. It is just against the background of minority rights. So it's always regarded against the background of the individual case and the nationality of the person concerned. Since the Roma live in the Balkans in various countries, or come from various countries, their country of origin and nationality are always relevant. The normal rules apply.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

To change the subject a bit, does Germany check the health condition of people entering your country? If so, what health checks do you do on people seeking to become permanent residents of Germany?

[Christian Klos]

If there are indications that a person carries a disease, there is the possibility of refusing entry and residence, of course, but that is not part of the normal scheme on long-term residence here in Germany.

There will be a little change with regard to a very small group of resettled refugees. I know that your country has a major resettlement scheme. For our settled refugees there are health checks in advance, but this does not necessarily prevent these people from coming to Germany.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

When you do the checks, do you know what diseases or conditions you are checking for?

[Christian Klos]

There is a general health check of the overall condition of the person concerned. To give you a number, we are in the very initial phase of the permanent resettlement program, and this concerns only 300 people a year. This is just a very early stage, and I don't think it is worth elaborating on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Klos.

The next person is Mr. Lamoureux, who represents another opposition party, the Liberal Party. Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, or good evening, depending upon what time it is in Germany.

My first question is on the tracking of people who enter into Germany, whether it's to work or visit. Does Germany as a state track individuals who are entering? Probably more importantly, do you have a mechanism in place to find out if people who are going to Germany are leaving the country in a timely fashion, as per why they might have entered the country in the first place?

[Christian Klos]

Thank you for the question.

For the time being we have only the classical way of determining whether a person has overstayed his or her visa, and that is a stamp in the passport, which allows us to actually control, if the passport is available, whether the person is overstaying or not.

In general, with the introduction of the aforementioned visa information system, we will be able to identify people via biometric identifiers and to find out whether someone has overstayed a visa. This was one of the main reasons for introducing this system: to be able to identify people without passports, because usually undocumented or irregular migrants do not present their documents. This will be the first possibility for us to identify people without documents, using biometric identifiers.

There is still a gap, and there are political discussions at the European level now on a planned entry-and-exit system, as the visa information system will cover only those who have applied for a visa, those who have entered illegally, or those whose visa has been waived. For this group of people we are not in position, for the time being, to identify who the person is and whether the person is undocumented or their residence is legal. Of course, if there is no documentation that will indicate to us that the residence is illegal, but it will be difficult to identify the nationality or the identity.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I'm curious as to whether or not Germany believes it has an issue with regard to individuals who are in Germany without legal status.

And finally, how is it determined which country is safe for the purposes of the safe country list?

If you could comment on both of those questions that would be great.

[Christian Klos]

Illegal immigration is of major concern in Germany and in all European countries. Therefore we do of course try to send people back to their countries of origin--or, if possible, to the country of transit if readmission agreements are in force. Therefore there is a common effort, and it is one of the major tasks of immigration control to actually remove people illegally residing in Germany and the rest of the European Union.

As regards your second question, there are conditions to be met to be on this list. It effectively enforces the Geneva Convention on refugees and the European Convention on Human Rights in order to allow that this is constitutional. Our constitutional court has upheld the decision by the German Parliament to define such a list and to have such a list. Therefore, it has been established practice for more than 15 years.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

How long, on average, would it take to deport a person who is found to be there illegally or without status?

[Christian Klos]

Well, this is difficult to say, actually, and unfortunately the first half of your sentence was cut, so I would prefer if you could once again ask your question, because I heard only a bit of it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

How long, on average, does it take to deport someone once you've identified them as someone who shouldn't be in the country?

[Christian Klos]

It's difficult to say an average time, because the federal states are in charge of enforcing the residence law, and therefore it's always difficult for us to provide figures. This is not a category we actually look at. It differs very much according to whether or not the person is documented.

It's easiest when we find these people at the airports, and then they can be sent directly back to the country of departure. But of course if someone is undocumented, it can take months or even years to return this person, and sometimes it's not possible at all if we do not manage to actually identify the nationality of the person.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Klos.

The next person is Mr. Wilks, who is with the Conservative Party in the government.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being with us this evening in Germany.

Extending upon what Mr. Lamoureux said, I'm curious as to how the electronic travelling authorization helps you prevent people who are inadmissible to Germany from entering.

[Christian Klos]

As a matter of fact—and here I speak as a civil servant of the ministry of the interior—unfortunately we do not have something like an ETA, as other countries have introduced. Therefore I cannot answer this question.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Moving on, then, can you please explain the process for determining which group memberships would result in someone being inadmissible to Germany? And from that, how many groups has Germany listed as security threats? Is there an exhaustive list you can provide of which groups you deem to be inadmissible?

[Christian Klos]

There are different groups of persons who are not admitted to the country, and here I name a list you should also have in Canada. This is the United Nations decisions as regards the list of persons under the suspicion of terrorism. This is of course a regime we will also fulfill. In addition, we do have at the European level the so-called Schenghen information system, where, on an individual basis, are stored the names of persons who are inadmissible due to previous criminal convictions or security intelligence that we have. If the name of a person is stored in the Schenghen information system, that person is refused entry.

In addition to this, we also have country lists where we look more closely into the files with our security authorities, both police and intelligence, to have better information about individuals applying for visas.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

When a group is deemed inadmissible, is everyone who is a member of that group inadmissible, and if not, why not? And if not, who determines whether the member of that group should be inadmissible?

[Christian Klos]

Actually, I wouldn't describe it as a group inadmissibility. It's always an individual inadmissibility. So we have for certain countries a greater security concern, but we check every individual's application on its own merit, and therefore there are no refusals on group considerations.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

What you're saying then is that if there was, for lack of a better word, a terrorism group that was identified, let's say by the UN, although the group may be inadmissible, a person within that group could be admissible?

[Christian Klos]

Usually if we have intelligence that this person belongs to a specific group, any application will be rejected. It might be, however, that for intelligence and security reasons we issue a visa. For example, for covert operations and to see and to detect terrorist networks in the country, we could allow the entry for surveillance and other issues, but security and intelligence will follow this person after entry.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

To change the topic just a bit, do your pre-screening measures have an effect on a person's ability to move through the visa queue faster? And if Canada enhanced its pre-screening measures, do you think it would help legitimize visitors easily being able to visit Canada while keeping illegal applicants out?

[Christian Klos]

The acceleration of certain visa categories is a subject of the political debate. We have a pilot project at Frankfurt airport, for example, where we have a partly automated border control and an iris scan is used for frequent travellers. These persons can be processed quickly through the immigration controls. But this is a pilot project. Usually there are no preferences. There might be lines in the air traffic for business and first-class passengers. This is the practice in some airports, but legally speaking, all passengers can use all counters equally, so there is no distinction made.