Immigrants from the Roma community in Germany are entitled to higher social benefits even if they cannot prove their identity or country of origin, the Lower Saxony-Bremen State Social Security Tribunal in Celle has ruled. According to the decision, published on Monday, the Hildesheim district must grant applicants higher benefits under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act.
Previously, a local social court had required the district to pay a six-member Roma family — allegedly from Kosovo — full social benefits and to give them access to the statutory health insurance system. Although the district filed an appeal against the decision, the most recent decision from the tribunal upheld the local court’s decision, according to Junge Freiheit.
Several European nations could not confirm citizenship
The family had not been able to prove their identity for years, and neither Kosovo nor Serbia and North Macedonia could confirm their citizenship. Therefore, since 2015, the district has refused to pay the usual social benefits to the plaintiffs because they had not presented any passports.
The regional social court ruled that it had not been able to prove that the family refused to obtain the identity papers. The court also referred to a guideline issued by the UN Commissioner for Refugees to determine the international protection needs of people from Kosovo, according to which many Roma are not registered in the country.
Germany pays an enormous amount of benefits to its growing migrant community. Jobless migrants cost the country at least €6 billion a year, and the government has announced that it plans to spend $64 billion on migrant benefits over the next four years.
Last year, German Interior Minister for the state of Saaraland Klaus Bouillon, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said in an extensive interview with Die Welt that there is growing outrage that migrants receive better benefits than Germans .
“There is great discontent among the population because everyone who arrives here immediately has many or even more rights along with rights to benefits and medical care than someone who has worked here for their entire life,” said Bouillon.
