They arrived in the middle of the night and rang at the birthing station. A group of policemen stood in the hallway of the Saalfeld hospital in Thuringia. They wanted to pick up a man and deport him - and this at a very inopportune time: his wife was in the midst of labor. This is what the Refugee Council of Thuringia reports. The officials were not impressed by the man's special situation.
The incident occurred on October 10, around two o'clock in the morning. Eight policemen and one employee of the aliens office Saalfeld-Rudolstadt went to the hospital. "Under humiliating circumstances," they had arrested the asylum seekers from the Ivory Coast and brought them to Frankfurt Airport, according to the Refugee Council.
From there he should be put on a plane to Italy. Here the man is said to have been registered for the first time in Europe. According to the Dublin Agreement, Italy is thus responsible for examining his asylum application. The couple lived according to the competent district office for about half a year in Germany.
"A family was just torn apart"
"It is a scandal that the prenatal protection authorities are not interested," says Ellen Könneker of the Refugee Council Thuringia. "A family was just torn apart." It was only due to the protest of two midwives that the expectant father was allowed to return to the hospital a little later and the deportation had been aborted.
Stefan Breidt, press spokesman for the "Thüringen Kliniken", to which the hospital in Saalfeld belongs, basically confirms the incident. The midwives, according to Breidt, called the authorities during the day because they found what had happened during the night "very difficult from a human and Christian point of view." Breidt does not want to judge the use of police and immigration authorities, but says: "We are very proud that our midwives have campaigned so courageously for the father."
The made according to the district office resistance at the airport in Frankfurt resistance. As a result, the federal police stopped the deportation.
But why had it come this far that night? The Landratsamt refers to the competence of the Federal Office for Refugees and Migration. It has confirmed the foreigners authority that the conditions for a deportation were given. Accordingly, no obstacle was seen in the woman's pregnancy as there was no "family relationship under German law" between the couple.
However, according to the Thüringer Flüchtlingsrat, the authorities knew that the young couple was not married under German law, but traditionally married and expected a baby together. In addition, the man recognized the paternity before birth. This is confirmed by the district office.
Time of deportation was a coincidence, according to District Office
Why the expectant father was picked up just on the day of his child's birth, explains the authority with the long-term planning of deportations and renditions. It could not be foreseen that the pickup date was "the exact date of the wife's delivery." Employees are under considerable pressure: "On the one hand, they must enforce applicable law and, at the same time, make difficult human decisions."
The family is now back in Saalfeld. According to the District Office, the deportation was suspended for the two adults and an asylum application filed for the child.
It is not the first case that authorities from Thuringia make a detention attempt in a particular situation. Already in May, the foreigners authority Ilm-Kreis wanted to pick up a risky pregnant woman from a hospital, said the refugee council. The woman from Nigeria was due to health problems in the clinic in Arnstadt. Also in this case, the staff prevented the deportation.