Illegal Immigrants Face Deportation Costs in Germany : Europe: Officials of states involved say fees are justified. Rights workers call payments ‘exploitation.’

An evening in the slammer is no night at the Ritz. But for the $64 to $84 per night that some German states want to collect from refugees awaiting deportation, it might at least be a Ramada Inn.

Forget credit cards--many of these deportees have no cash even--but a good watch, video camera or VCR will do in some cases in which prison officials have orders to seize valuables from those who cannot pay the jail bill.

In the last couple months, several of Germany’s 16 states have begun charging illegal immigrants for the costs of their deportation, including jail stays.

And the “room” rates run high: about $84 per night in Baden-Wurttemberg, $64 in Bavaria--and $77 in Lower Saxony, until press reports embarrassed that Social Democratic state government into canceling the daily charges.

The practice, legal under Germany’s foreigners law and a federal asylum statute passed last year, is still more an exception than the rule.

Many states, such as North Rhine-Westphalia, do not charge, and most refugees cannot pay. Officials in Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg said they actually have collected money or goods in only about 5% to 10% of deportation cases.

But refugee and human rights workers are questioning the taking of any money from immigrants, especially those who have lost in the legal asylum process and must make a new start back home. “It is double exploitation,” said Kai Weber of the private Refugees Council in Lower Saxony. “First they are exploited as cheap workers, and afterward the money they have earned under hard conditions is taken away from them.”

Stefan Teloeken, spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Bonn, said international conventions do not cover the issue of charging refugees fees. “Legally, this is possible under German law. The question is whether it is appropriate,” Teloeken said.

Officials in states that charge deportees insist it is. “Deportation is the responsibility of the person affected,” said Hesse Interior Ministry spokesman Gerd-Uwe Mende. “They are here illegally and, therefore, they must pay the consequences if they are deported.”

That is in principle. In fact, Mende conceded, “I cannot take money from someone who has none.”

In the United States, deportations of foreign criminals and illegal immigrants who do not leave voluntarily are the responsibility of the federal government, which pays for all costs of detaining and returning them to their countries.

The average cost of detaining an illegal immigrant for deportation from the United States is about $39 per day, according to Michael Manuel, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington. The U.S. government deported 37,003 people in 1993 and has deported 38,725 so far this year. The budget for the 1994 deportation program is $385 million.

Such figures are harder to come by in Germany. Although asylum and deportations are governed by federal law, the responsibility for support of asylum-seekers and deportations of those who have been denied rests with the state and, in some states, with the community.

An asylum study group, Arbeitskreis Asyl, says that 36,000 people were deported from Germany in 1993. The federal Interior Ministry says it has no nationwide deportation figures.

Unlike in the United States, people requesting political asylum in Germany receive government assistance in the form of housing, food, clothing and medical care while awaiting a decision on their cases. The cost is about $10,000 per person per year for an estimated 1 million to 1.5 million people.

In turn, the refugees’ movement is restricted--they must remain in the county where they are placed--and the government can find them easily in the event they are denied asylum. If they do not agree to leave voluntarily, or if the government fears they will “disappear,” they are jailed for anywhere from several days to six weeks, then charged and deported.

Among the thousands of people awaiting deportation at any one time--600 in North Rhine-Westphalia alone--are Vietnamese, Algerians and citizens of the former Yugoslav federation who have no papers and have difficulty getting any from governments resisting taking back their refugees. Some of these people may remain in jail for months.

Others awaiting deportation include illegal immigrants who got caught by police checking documents or were arrested, and asylum-seekers rounded up after losing their cases.

Bavarian Interior Ministry spokesman Christoph Hillenbrand defended the practice of charging for detention, administration of deportations and flights home, saying that federal law “obliges” states to ask for payment for repatriation.

“Often you can’t get this money, but sometimes they have luxury goods and sometimes cash. Maybe in 5% of all cases, you can get a certain sum. Sometimes they’ll surprise you and have a big Rolex or a thousand marks ($635) or a video player,” Hillenbrand said.

What does Bavaria do with the goods? “We try to sell them. It’s not Christie’s, but there are other ways to sell in an auction,” he said.

That states had begun charging deportees was virtually unknown until the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper reported it in Lower Saxony last month. Following the story, authorities in Hanover confirmed at a news conference that they were charging deportees a daily rate and confiscating valuables from those who could not pay.

But after the national weekly magazine Focus reported the story, state officials began denying the practice--even as the state’s Social Democratic prime minister, Gerhard Schroeder, announced he would put a stop to it.