The government office at the heart of Germany's ongoing asylum scandal was thrust into even deeper controversy on Sunday, after the Interior Ministry confirmed that at least two extremists were granted asylum after their requests were not properly processed.

The government's confirmation came on the back of an investigation by Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (German Editorial Network), a journalism association, which found that the Bremen office of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) had allowed more than 80 migrants to enter Germany since 2000 who instead should have been flagged to authorities.

Read more: Germany's asylum system in numbers

An Interior Ministry spokeswoman told Germany's DPA news agency that one of the extremists was labelled as a potential terrorist threat, while the other was known to have Islamist extremist ties.

In all, 46 approved migrants were found to have some form of Islamist ties.

The findings mark the latest embarrassment for the BAMF's regional office in Bremen.

German asylum scandal: A timeline Corruption scandal at BAMF On April 20, 2018, a number of employees at the regional BAMF office in Bremen were accused of having illegally accepted hundreds of asylum applicants between 2013 and 2017, mainly from Iraq's Yazidi community. Bremen public prosecutors announced that six people, including the former director of the Bremen BAMF office, were under investigation for alleged corruption in about 1,200 cases.

German asylum scandal: A timeline Damage control Steffen Seibert, spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, reacted swiftly to the allegations, saying it would be wrong to speculate on what consequences the incident could have for the BAMF immigration offices. He said that the "extremely serious allegations" would first have to be resolved. The BAMF scandal could be a major embarrassment to Chancellor Merkel's open-door policy to refugees.

German asylum scandal: A timeline The plot thickens A few weeks into the scandal, German media reported that 13 further regional BAMF branches were going to be subject to checks regarding their approval of asylum applications. The branches had apparently come under scrutiny for showing noticeable differences in the number of asylum applications accepted or rejected in comparison to other offices. Some 8,000 applications will have to be re-checked.

German asylum scandal: A timeline BAMF head under fire A month into the scandal, details emerged that BAMF had been informed about the possible improprieties in Bremen earlier than thought, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported. The irregularities were reportedly flagged back in February 2017. In the light of the growing scandal, BAMF head Jutta Cordt announced that some 18,000 asylum decisions made in Bremen since 2000 now had to be re-checked.

German asylum scandal: A timeline Seehofer to face parliamentary committee German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer meanwhile confirmed that he would testify before a special meeting of the Bundestag internal affairs committee to be convened at the request of the Green Party. The committee hopes to avoid a full-blown parliamentary investigation, which two other opposition parties — the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the center-right FDP — are calling for.

German asylum scandal: A timeline Man of the hour This might be the man who would have to answer some serious questions if a comprehensive parliamentary inquiry should be launched. Thomas de Maiziere was Germany's interior minister until the beginning of the year, overseeing the management of asylum application at the height of the refugee crisis. De Maiziere, an ally of Merkel's, criticized the shortcomings of the assessment system in the past.

German asylum scandal: A timeline Stripped of authority On May 23, the German Interior Ministry prohibited the regional BAMF office in Bremen from deciding whether individual refugees will be given asylum in the country. Seehofer said an internal BAMF report had shown that "legal regulations and internal policies" had been "disregarded" at the center.

German asylum scandal: A timeline Federal Police join probe The city of Bremen has said Germany's Federal Criminal Police are now part of the inquiry into the wide-ranging corruption. The decision came after a crisis meeting on the scandal surrounding the city's asylum procedure for refugees. Author: Sertan Sanderson



Last month, the office was suspended from assessing any further asylum requests amid accusations that a regional officer falsely allowed some 1,200 migrants to settle in Germany between 2013 and 2016, possibly in exchange for bribes. The Bremen office has been placed under investigation.

The accused officer, identified under German privacy laws only as Ulrike B., has described the allegations as "nonsense" and accused the government of making her a scapegoat for its own failure to efficiently reform Germany's asylum system.

Read more: German asylum scandal: What is the Interior Ministry hiding?

Germany's migration office has come under intense scrutiny following the 2015 refugee crisis. The government's decision to allow more than one million migrants to settle in Germany forced the BAMF to more than double its staff from 3,000 to 7,300 to handle the influx.

Each office was also forced to up its own processing targets to an average of 3.5 per day. Last year, only three out of 66 BAMF branches managed to meet the target.

What now for Angela Merkel?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was left reeling from the BAMF scandal on Sunday, after the migration agency's former head effectively accused her of ignoring his warnings about the excessive workload and demands being placed on agency staff.

"The failure lies in the inaction (of the government) when the challenges that Germany would face with the arrival of the refugees became clear," Frank-Jürgen Weise, who headed the BAMF from late 2015 to the end of 2016, told news German weekly Der Spiegel. "The crisis could have been prevented."

Read more: AfD files complaint against German government's refugee policy

Even voices from within the Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel's junior coalition partner, chided the chancellor for her handling of the crisis.

Speaking to German tabloid Bild, SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil called on Merkel to immediately disclose "what she knew about the problems at the BAMF and when she knew them."

SPD Deputy Chairman Ralf Stegner said the chancellor bore full responsibility for the excessive demands placed on BAMF staff. "The loss of control over the most important authority in refugee policy served to the detriment of those affected and local authorities, and to the benefit of right-wing populists," he told Germany's Tagesspiegel newspaper. "The chancellor has simply failed."

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