German officials condemned for sending deportation notice to baby

AUTHORITIES in Germany sent a fivemonth-old baby a letter ordering him to leave the country or face deportation, even though his parents had been given permission to stay.

Yasin Nazar was born in Germany to Afghan parents who arrived as asylumseekers two years ago. Zmarai and Nazimeh Nazari’s claim to asylum was rejected two days before Yasin was born, but they have been allowed to remain in the country while they challenge the decision in the courts.

Their 15-year-old son, Milad, has been permitted to stay because he has leukaemia and lawyers are arguing that the family should not be split up. However, the Nazaris were then stunned to receive a letter addressed to fivemonth-old Yasin telling him he had to leave immediately.

The letter said Yasin could not claim he had faced persecution in Afghanistan because he had never been there.

“The authorities’ approach is scandalous. They haven’t taken the fundamental rights of a family into account at all,” Manfred Kösterke, a lawyer for the Nazaris, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “To give a baby a deportation notice without waiting for a court decision on his parents’ ongoing procedure shows they’re just sending out pre-formatted letters.”

Officials have said that despite the notice, the child will not be deported without his parents.

None of the family are at imminent risk of expulsion. Angela Merkel’s government this week suspended deportations of rejected asylum-seekers to Afghanistan in the wake of a truck bombing in Kabul that killed 90 people.