The Applications Story

ARD (public TV, Channel One in Germany) came up with a news item today which relates an ongoing issue with migrants in Germany and their applications for visas.

Once you enter Germany and apply for immigration or the visa.....there is a fair amount of paperwork.  Questions are asked.....your identity needs to be verified, and your case has to be worked.  It's done by one single government agency out of Nuremberg.

There have been various reports from news groups over the past three years which talked about the various rates of 'passing' or 'failing'.  At some point in 2016, I can recall seeing a passing rate for Iraqis and Syrians of around 90-to-95 percent.  For other nationalities.....it was less.  In the case of Tunisians for that year, the news folks talked of a 90-to-95 percent failure rate.

For the most part, this Nuremberg group has a checklist and they evaluate everything you write into the application, and there is an end-phase....you pass or fail.  If you fail....there is some bit of time where you could file an appeal.

So ARD talked about this appeal business today.  Out of every ten cases determined as a failure....nine of them will end up as appeals.

Based on the current rate....40-percent of these cases have been 'corrected' by the judges.  Course, that means that 60-percent of the cases deemeded failed applications....stay failed applications.  According to ARD, if you use just Syrian and Afghan cases only.....it's a very high rate of failed applications that are corrected.

Why?  The story never discusses that part of the episode.

I sat and looked at the story, coming to this odd conclusion.  There are probably over 300 questions that I would be asking about this 'correction' activity by the German court system.  Did the Nuremberg visa application group have a poor process?  Are untrained people making the decisions?  Is there a higher rate of court corrections with particular judges?  Yet, there's really not much to explain why 40-percent of failed applicants have had their situations reversed.

You would almost get the impression that the Nuremberg agency ought to just invite the judges to be the full-time reviewer of the applications.

I'm hoping that some broad-minded journalists will sit and ask more questions over the story, but I have my doubts.