The service for other authorities , Date: 2018.11.28, format: Article, area: Authority

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If callers phone in to the "service for other authorities", they are first authenticated. The service answers enquiries coming from authorities which are directly involved in the asylum procedure in terms of their portfolios or carry out downstream tasks related to the procedure. Information is provided regarding the status of pending and completed sets of asylum procedures. The Service for citizens is available to answer general enquiries or those from other authorities which are not directly involved.

The authorities involved in the asylum procedures are: immigration authorities, youth welfare offices, court-appointed guardians, courts and lawyers, as well as the police.

Please note that the following information is needed in order to authentify immigration authorities:

  • the number according to the Central Register of Foreigners (AZR),
  • the authority indicator,
  • the file reference from the authority.

Lawyers, courts, the police, youth welfare offices and court-appointed guardians can be authenticated by phoning back to the respective central telephone exchange of the authority/office in question and being put through to the extension of the enquirer.

Please note:

Personal enquiries regarding the status of a procedure cannot be answered by e-mail for reasons related to data protection, so we would ask you to contact us by telephone. In order to be fair to other callers, we would also like to ask you to limit the number of status enquiries to up to five per phone call.

Enquiries in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act (Informationsfreiheitsgesetz - IFG) came into force in 2006. This Act ensures that everyone has access to official information from this authority.

We will be pleased to receive an e-mail containing your enquiry at: ifg@bamf.bund.de

We generally answer enquiries within four weeks unless third parties need to be involved in accordance with section 8 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Please provide us with a complete postal address, as no anonymous enquiries will be processed.

Before you make an enquiry, you are legally obliged in accordance with section 9 subsection (3) of the Freedom of Information Act to examine whether this information is publicly available. We are not obliged to provide information should this be the case.

Please note that the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has posted considerable amounts of information, statistics, procedures, forms, studies and the like on this website. Please therefore make sure that the information that you are looking for is not already online here.

The information that you ask for will be provided in the official language, i.e. in German.

Please also verify whether the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees really is the right authority, i.e. that it is permitted in accordance with section 7 subsection (1) of the Freedom of Information Act to have the official information. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees is for instance not responsible for legislation.

Finally, please note that enquirers may have to pay fees of up to € 500 in accordance with section 10 of the Freedom of Information Act. However, this is always looked into in individual cases, and enquirers are informed in advance of the amount of the fee that would be chargeable. You can then decide whether you wish to uphold the enquiry.