Germany wants to make deportations easier amid migrant influx -paper

BERLIN - German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere wants to make it easier to deport foreigners from Germany, regional newspaper Ruhr Nachrichten said, citing a draft law from the Interior Ministry.

Germany expects a record influx of 800,000 migrants and refugees this year. The federal states are increasingly complaining about the cost of coping with the inflow.

"It will become easier to enforce existing obligations to leave the country," the newspaper cited the draft law as saying in an article due to be published on Thursday.

"In future, once the deadline for people to voluntarily leave the country has passed, the date of deportation must not be announced to reduce the risk of people going into hiding."

The newspaper cited the draft law as saying that the maximum time for which federal states can defer deportations would be reduced to three months from six months.

It also said cash benefits would, as far as possible, be replaced by non-cash benefits of the same value for asylum seekers while they stay in registration centres.

The Interior Ministry was not immediately available for comment.

The newspaper said the plans were being agreed between ministries and the federal government, with the cabinet due to agree to them this month.

Earlier this month Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition agreed on a series of measures, such as speeding up asylum procedures and facilitating the construction of asylum shelters. It also agreed to widen the list of countries deemed "safe", meaning their citizens generally have no claim to asylum, to include Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro.