If you want the German citizenship, you must meet several basic requirements. One of them is that no serious crimes for naturalization applicants are registered in the Federal Central Register. Matthias Regenbrecht, who is responsible for naturalizations in the Tübingen district office, also always checks this basic requirement. The legislature initially set a penalty of 90 daily rates that naturalization applicants in the Federal Central Register must not exceed. That is why Regenbrecht is currently not allowed to naturalize someone who has been sentenced to 100 daily rates by the court, for example as a result of physical assault. However, it is at his discretion to interpret the seriousness of the crime. Regenbrecht talked about drug trafficking as an example. If someone were repeatedly caught with two grams of cocaine, naturalization could be refused because of the seriousness of the crime, even though the 90 daily rates might not have been reached. In Regenbrecht’s view, everything is serious,
‘which has to do with drugs” or with child pornography. In such cases, Regenbrecht reads the respective court judgment carefully. In principle, he must also consider crimes that someone has previously committed abroad, including in the country of origin. However, Regenbrecht makes it clear that he distinguishes serious crimes from those that have been committed for political reasons. Some naturalization applicants first must wait for the deadlines after which their crimes will be deleted from the Federal Central Register. Only then can the naturalization process be initiated or continued.
tun061504
Foto: tünews INTERNATIONAL; Mostafa Elyasian, 02.07.2020
