The BAMF office has decided to hire 200 more employees to double-check asylum applications that have received a positive decision. This is in addition to the 200 employees the office already has for this purpose, German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. The office has seen a substantial increase in human resources overall due to the refugee crisis. While at the end of 2015, the BAMF had 3500 employees, there were 4780 by April 2016.

The bizarre case of Franco A. has been one of the main reasons the German government is doing more to double check asylum applications. Last year, Franco A., a right-wing extremist army officer in the German armed forces (Bundeswehr), had been planning a terrorist attack. Franco A., however, led a double life, and claimed in 2015 that he was Syrian refugee from Damascus. The German government accepted his asylum claim, although he couldn't even speak Arabic. This was clearly due to administrative errors. 

Following this case, former Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere called on the German government to check around 150,000 asylum cases which had received a positive decision. Only half of these cases have been looked at as yet, and only around 2500 cases have been closed. Around 421 people (17 percent) had their protection status taken away, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports.

Fake passports

The government also has inspected 25,000 asylum seekers' passporst, which led to the discovery of 130 forged passports. It is important to note, however, that a fake passport does not automatically mean that the government will overturn a refugee's positive asylum decision.

The Left party in Germany has called for the German government to pay more attention to rechecking negative asylum decisions. By the end of 2017, around 372,000 asylum applications had been left up to the courts to decide and according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung many of the judges have lambasted the "deficient quality of the BAMF's asylum decisions."