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Dessau-Roßlau / Magdeburg (dpa / sa) - Around three years after the decision to have its own deportation detention center in Dessau-Roßlau, Saxony-Anhalt is completely rescheduling.

The state government is examining a new location for the facility, said a spokesman for the interior ministry of the German press agency.

The reason for the change of course is the cost development for the planned deportation detention with 30 places in the former Dessau prison.

According to the latest estimate, the project will cost at least 12.6 million euros, reported the “Mitteldeutsche Zeitung” (Saturday), citing a response from the Interior Ministry to a request from the Green parliamentary group.

This means that the amount is above the maximum limit of ten million euros set by the government.

"Further even higher cost risks cannot be ruled out because of the old building fabric and are likely," the newspaper quoted from the answer from the Interior Ministry.

The country is not making any headway with a prestige project by the former interior minister Holger Stahlknecht (CDU).

For years, Saxony-Anhalt has had no way of detaining migrants who are obliged to leave the country.

The main reason is a ruling by the European Court of Justice that deportation candidates are not allowed to sit in normal prisons.

If Saxony-Anhalt detains migrants before they are deported, it uses places in other federal states.

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It was not until 2017 that the state moved away from building the facility on the site of the central initial reception for asylum seekers in Halberstadt and instead renovating the former Dessau prison.

"Ultimately, most of the technical factors spoke in favor of Dessau as a location," said the Ministry of Finance at the time.

The aim was to invest “in the low single-digit million range”, initially around three million euros.

But the construction plans were delayed several times and construction costs rose.

The detention center should actually be ready in 2019.

When the country has found and established a new location is completely open.