German parliament approves legislation easing deportations of rejected asylum seekers

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s parliament has approved legislation that is intended to ease deportations of unsuccessful asylum-seekers as Chancellor Olaf Scholz seeks to defuse migration as a political problem. The legislation approved Thursday foresees increasing the maximum length of pre-deportation custody from 10 days to 28 and specifically facilitating the deportation of people who are members of a criminal organization. Germany’s shelters for migrants and refugees have been filling up as significant numbers of asylum-seekers add to more than 1 million Ukrainians who have arrived since the start of Russia’s war in their homeland.