page_title: Asylum in Germany
section_title: Asylum and refugee status
hierarchical_section_title: Asylum in Germany / Asylum and refugee status
context_page_description: The right of asylum for victims of political persecution is a basic right stipulated in the Constitution of Germany. In a wider sense, the right of asylum recognises the definition of 'refugee' as established in the 1951 Refugee Convention and is understood to protect asylum seekers from deportation and grant them certain protections under the law. Generally, these protections are a part of the asylum procedure itself and are verified by the Federal Office For Migration and Refugees without any further application.
  In 1993 and 2015, the initially unlimited right of asylum was revised in essential points and also limited. In light of the refugee crisis in the second half of 2015, a transformation of the fundamental right of asylum into an objective guarantee was demanded in order to give the state the legal opportunity to impose an upper limit or quota.
context_section_description: The German residence act (Aufenthaltsgesetz) only regulates refugee status. Neither the residence act nor the asylum law (Asylgesetz) defines the concept of asylum. Its content and limitations are primarily a result of the court ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court concerning Section 16a GG in the German Basic Law. In accordance with Section 16a (1) GG, a person is considered to be experiencing political persecution if he or she is suffering from infringements of his or her rights by the state or third person measures that can be attributed to the state, because of religious or political convictions or other inaccessible features that mark the individual's otherness. These infringements of the personal rights violate human dignity and, depending on their intensity and severity, exclude the individual person from the state's general keeping of the peace and put him or her in a desperate situation.
  More commonly, politically persecuted people are granted protection based on the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (also known as 1951 Refugee Convention). Although the Refugee Convention has been valid in Germany since 24 December 1953, the German legislature often did not consider it necessary to grant refugees full refugee status. Instead, it simply granted them a recognition of asylum. This procedure only changed with the Qualification Directive (2011/95/EU) and a law that was passed along with it in August 2007. Today, official refugee status is conferred on refugees, in addition to the status of being entitled to political asylum when necessary (Section 3 (1) and (4) Asylum Procedure Act). Now, refugee status is equal to the status of a 'person entitled to political asylum' (Asylberechtiger), in regard to the right of residence. Furthermore, admitted refugees have no disadvantages compared to people entitled to political asylum concerning social benefits, participation in the employment market and the granting of travel documents. For more information concerning the definition of refugees in Germany see the German article on Flüchtlingseigenschaft.
  The asylum law regulates the administrative proceedings that grant the asylum seeker the status of a person entitled to political asylum. During the asylum proceedings the asylum seeker receives temporary permission to stay.
caption: Refugee housing constructed from repurposed shipping containers in Hannover, Germany.
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