Staying Without Really Arriving
What does it do to a person to live in a state of ongoing legal insecurity — often over the course of many years? To have no certainty about whether they can remain in the country, to be allowed to work only under certain highly specific conditions, to have their place of residence dictated to them, and to be limited in their freedom of movement? And how does the staff of the responsible immigration office experience the handling of tolerated stays in their own daily work; how do they perceive their mission and their working conditions?
There are roughly 195,000 persons currently living in Germany whose stay is tolerated. Tolerated stay is inherently a dilemma; it is not a residence permit, meaning a tolerated person is still obligated to leave the country. Yet, the toleration is granted because there are good reasons speaking against departure or deportation. A tolerated stay is only valid for a limited period and must continually be renewed, meaning the person with tolerated stay must remain in constant contact with the immigration office.
A research team from the University of Siegen under the direction of Professor Christian Lahusen explored tolerated stay from the perspective of practice. The aim was to determine why this uncertain condition often lasts for multiple years, although both local government agencies and the tolerated persons have an interest in seeing it end. To better understand how legal regulations and the political framework conditions contribute to the situation, the team conducted interviews with experts from politics, academia, and law and analyzed legal texts and other related documents. The primary focus of the research, however, was the level of practical implementation. Based on concrete case trajectories, the researchers sought to determine which factors contribute to people remaining in a tolerated situation for years. To this end, Stephanie Schneider, who was responsible for the project work, conducted interviews with persons in insecure residency situations and accompanied 21 persons over a period of up to three years to their appointments at the immigration offices. She also observed agency practices through job shadowing and interviewed agency management and case workers. Additional conversations were conducted with actors from civil society.
The research was conducted as a subproject of the “Transborder Mobility and Institutional Dynamics” (transMID) research group, with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG). The research group explored various forms of mobility (such as labor and refugee migration or family reunifications) in various regional and national contexts, and had received roughly 3.3 million euros in total funding.
One of the crucial insights from the study: legal regulations and administrative practices may officially seek unambiguous, transparent, and binding final decisions; The case of 'tolerated stay' shows, however, just how complex, demanding, and contradictory state regulation of mobility is, and how many legal, administrative, as well as economic and social factors influence it at the same time. “The very attempts at state control can generate unintended consequences and lead to a permanent state of limbo,” explains Professor Christian Lahusen, an expert in sociology at the University of Siegen who researches with Schneider.
A system of contradictory requirements
Case workers at immigration offices face a structural paradox: They are tasked with enforcing deportations, but also must take into consideration grounds that speak against deportation. That could, for example, be missing travel documents, medical or humanitarian reasons, the issuance of a residence permit, securing employment, or family ties. In their daily working lives, they must reconcile the state’s interest in control with the protection of human rights and the fundamental social rights of persons living in Germany, all while also adhering to the procedural requirements of administrative law. These deliberations are complex and require discretionary decisions for which there is often no clear basis. Furthermore, these workers are often overloaded and lack both time and sufficient personnel. “Under these conditions, the contradictions built into the system spill over onto the level of daily case processing,” explains Stephanie Schneider.
The case workers rely on the cooperation of a variety of other parties, especially when the matter at hand is preparation for a deportation, but also when the issuance of a residence permit is under consideration. Neither the case workers nor the persons concerned are certain how the case will ultimately evolve itself. On the one hand, the tolerated persons are expected to take an active part in the very measures that could lead to their deportation; they are also significantly restricted in their freedom of movement and in their opportunities to take part in societal life (such as work, education, and language acquisition). On the other hand, those very areas from which the tolerated stay excludes them are the ones in which efforts are demanded when assessing prospects for remaining.
This contradiction can set a vicious cycle into motion, as Schneider illuminates through a case example from the study: “A father who had submitted his entire range of passport documents from the start to the government agency had to wait several years before finally receiving a work permit. In the interim, he has been working in shifts to support his family. His wife participates in language courses and his children go to school or have successfully completed vocational training and one of them now has a residency permit. The father communicates reasonably well in practice, but his shift work makes it almost impossible to take part in a formal language course. An official certificate of language mastery is, however, a mandatory condition for receiving a residence permit. If this person were to give up his job to take the language course, then a different legal requirement for the residence permit would no longer be met. These are cases in which regularization fails not because of a lack of integration or cooperation, but rather due to legal or administrative obstacles.”
Unintended consequences of state regulation
The research team points to a series of these unintended consequences and contradictions. “Even the certificate of tolerated status represents a contradiction: It confirms the suspension of deportation, yet at the same time confirms the obligation to leave. It is valid for a certain period, but can lose its validity at any time,” explains Schneider. Unlike a residence permit, the temporary nature of a tolerated stay is literally visible. The paper document becomes worn down it can be modified and renewed with a sticker. For the affected parties, showing this document is often tied to feelings of shame — and tangible disadvantages in the search for housing, vocational training, or work. “The tolerated status could, in this regard, be regarded as an instrument of deterrence to discourage remaining or coming in the first place,” says Professor Lahusen. This is an overly simplistic view, as it ignores the motives and constraints that drive the actions of tolerated persons and government agencies, each of whom have good reasons for remaining and/or extending the tolerated stays. “What this means is that the uncertain situation caused by tolerated stay is not intended, but rather a consequence of a contradictory legal, administrative, and enforcement system.”
Living under uncertainty
The consequences for the affected persons are serious: Constant fear of deportation, limited working opportunities, restricted financial resources, limits to freedom of movement, separation from family members, and cramped living quarters are common features in the daily life of many of the study participants. “One thing our interview partners emphasize again and again is just how much resilience and strength is needed to live under these conditions, not to break, and to take part in societal life in spite of all these difficulties,” notes Stephanie Schneider.
In practice, what is intended as a short-term solution frequently becomes a permanent situation. This is not an acceptable situation, either for the government agencies or for the persons with tolerated stays, Lahusen says. Changing the system remains an open political question. What’s missing is a systematic approach to embedding a sustainable path to regularization. The existing legal options are, in practice, rarely used and are tied to conditions that are frequently difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill.
With the introduction of the “opportunity residence act” (Chancenaufenthaltsrecht) in December 2022, since expired, legislators made an attempt to remove at least some of the practical obstacles that stand in the way of issuing a residence permit. However, perspectives that are not solely based on performance or merit need to be significantly expanded, made open-ended, and designed without deadlines, emphasizes Stephanie Schneider. This would benefit not just the directly affected persons, but also the wider societal interests. “We were able to observe during our research that when a residence permit is issued, the concrete prospect of remaining that comes with it brought the persons concerned noticeable psychological relief and greater future orientation and self-determination," Schneider explains. This, in turn, has a positive effect on societal involvement, participation, and relief for social systems. In addition, regularization could remove a major driver of exploitative working conditions and the violations of labor laws. Immigration offices could also have their loads eased if tolerated stay no longer needed to be renewed every few weeks or months. Last but not least, it is a matter of concern for the rule of law if people remain permanently excluded from fundamental social and civil rights.
Once the “Precarious Stay” subproject ends in mid-2026, the researchers intend to investigate the situation across different countries.
