Federal Office for Migration and Refugees

On 18 September 2015, during the European migrant crisis, Frank-Jürgen Weise, president of the German employment office Bundesagentur für Arbeit (Federal Agency for Employment), was appointed also as chief of BAMF; since he was not allowed to have a further paid function, he served as a head of the agency without any additional payment.

The authority could not confirm why this was the case, but cited factors such as illness and pregnancy to explain why some participants did not complete the course.

Prosecutors assumed at that point, that a single administrator of the BAMF had collaborated with two private lawyers and arranged preferential treatment for the clients they reported to her.

According to Carsten Momsen, professor of law at the Free University of Berlin, "political influencing" had been instrumental in creating the public perception of the investigations being an "incredibly extensive process".

This includes the medical examination by the Länder, the recording of the personal data and the identity check, the application, the interview and the BAMF decision on the asylum application, as well as the initial advice on access to the labour market by the local Employment Agency.

This particularly relates to applications lodged by individuals from unsafe countries of origin such as Syria, Iraq and Eritrea.