Persons of German ethnicity who remained living in the territory of the former Soviet Union from May 1945 onward, or after being expelled from 31 March 1952 onward, as well as their family members, are entitled to apply for late resettler status, which allows them to resettle permanently in Germany.
Whereas in the 1990s, when the first large wave of resettlement began, German law imposed fairly strict requirements on applicants seeking late resettler status, the 2013 amendments to Germany's Act on the Affairs of Displaced Persons and Refugees (Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge) considerably eased those requirements. Moreover, the amendments gave every applicant previously refused recognition as a late resettler for any reason a second chance — that is, the opportunity to file an application to reopen their earlier case, in which the Federal Office of Administration (Bundesverwaltungsamt) had issued a negative decision.
B1/B2 Language Certificate Requirements
To obtain late resettler status, an applicant must prove German proficiency at a native-speaker level (Section 6 BVFG) — exemption from the test is possible only on medical grounds.
Our client Mikhail (name changed), a native of the Russian Federation belonging to the German ethnicity through his father's line, decided to take advantage of exactly this second chance. Mikhail's grandfather returned to Germany immediately after the collapse of the USSR, while Mikhail's father Dmitri (name changed) decided to remain in Russia with his family. By the late 1990s, however, the grandfather had persuaded Dmitri to apply for late resettler status.
Having filled in the necessary forms and submitted the documents he had, our client's father hoped for a quick and successful outcome, since his own father had already been recognized as a late resettler and had been living in Germany for several years. To Dmitri's surprise, however, the Federal Office of Administration refused him on the grounds that he had not proven his German ethnicity. Shocked by this news, Mikhail's father could not understand what further evidence he needed to provide, given that his birth certificate stated in black and white that his father was German. Frustrated by the refusal, Dmitri decided there was no point challenging the decision of the authority for foreigners' affairs and simply chose to remain in Russia.
Mikhail, however — by then grown up and with a family of his own — was moved by the news that a renewed application for late resettler status was now possible. Our client weighed the pros and cons for a long time, consulted his family, and ultimately decided to approach our law firm to represent his family's interests in the matter.
Since this was not a new case but the reopening of an earlier one, our attorney warned the client that it would first be necessary to review the case file from Dmitri's application for late resettler status back in the 1990s. A corresponding request was accordingly sent to the Federal Office of Administration, hereafter "BVA."
Having carefully reviewed Dmitri's case file, the attorney informed Mikhail that his father had been refused because his first passport, and later his marriage certificate, had recorded him as Russian by nationality. The BVA had accordingly concluded that, although Dmitri's father was German, Dmitri himself had not acknowledged his own belonging to the German people, since he had never exercised his right to amend the "nationality" field.
Furthermore, the copies of documents Mikhail had submitted also recorded him as Russian. In order to prove Mikhail's German ethnicity in the renewed proceedings, it would therefore be necessary, first, to amend Dmitri's documents and, second, to amend our client's own documents.
Mikhail expressed his willingness to take every necessary step, though our client would first have to speak with his father — with whom, however, he did not have a particularly close relationship — to find out whether his father, too, would be willing to file a renewed application and amend his documents.
The process of amending documents (typically a marriage certificate and a birth certificate) is fairly burdensome under Russian law, since civil registry offices generally make such amendments only on the basis of a court decision confirming the need for them (although civil registry offices do have the legal authority to make such amendments themselves, without going to court). This did not deter our client, and our attorney accordingly drafted a court action, to be filed with a Russian court, to establish the fact of German ethnicity and amend the necessary documents.
At the very last moment, however, Dmitri told his son that he was not prepared for such changes and that, moreover, his health did not allow him to get drawn into bureaucratic proceedings — so he had no intention of either applying for resettler status or initiating the process of amending his documents. Because Dmitri's documents recorded him as Russian, Mikhail had no grounds to seek a court-ordered amendment to his own documents either, since his birth certificate stated that both his mother and his father were Russian by nationality.
Learning of these circumstances, our attorney warned Mikhail that there was a risk of another BVA refusal, since his father had never proven his own German ethnicity — meaning the chain linking Mikhail to his German ancestors had effectively been broken. The attorney accordingly suggested considering alternative solutions. Mikhail, however, insisted on filing the application to reopen the proceedings recognizing him and his family as late resettlers.
On the basis of the client's decision, our attorney completed the relevant forms and submitted a detailed justification of the fact that Mikhail belonged to the German ethnicity. The attorney emphasized that both our client and his father honored German traditions, were familiar with German culture, and spoke German, but that during the Soviet era Dmitri had been forced to adopt his mother's nationality rather than his German father's, for fear that his rights would otherwise be curtailed. Today, Russian Federation passports no longer include a "nationality" field at all. As a result, our client's own birth certificate recorded his father as Russian by nationality. The attorney also asked that it be taken into account that amending Mikhail's documents was only possible after the corresponding amendments had been made to his father's documents — but that Dmitri had refused to initiate that process.
Having reviewed the arguments presented, the BVA responded that, in the absence of documents directly confirming the German ethnicity of both Mikhail and his father, our client could not be granted late resettler status.
Following this refusal, our attorney once again turned to the alternative route for obtaining a permit to enter Germany. Since our client's grandfather was still alive and living in Germany, having previously obtained late resettler status, he was entitled, as the principal applicant, under German law (Section 27(2) BVFG) to request that members of his family — including his grandson — be included in his admission decision (Aufnahmebescheid). In order to move to Germany, however, Mikhail would need to obtain a special permit for joint departure (Einbeziehungsbescheid).
The attorney drew our client's attention to the fact that Mikhail and his children would obtain German citizenship very quickly upon arriving in Germany (Section 7 of Germany's Act on the Affairs of Displaced Persons and Refugees), whereas Mikhail's wife would only be entitled to a temporary residence permit as a foreign national (Section 8 of the same Act). After three years of marriage, however, our client's wife would also become eligible to apply for German citizenship.
The attorney further noted that, when moving to Germany under Sections 7 and 8 of the Act mentioned above, the employment record accrued by Mikhail and his wife while working in the Russian Federation would not be recognized. However, since Mikhail and his wife were still young and did not have extensive employment records in Russia, this nuance was not expected to matter much to them.
Mikhail told the attorney that he and his family would consider this alternative course of action, but in the meantime it was decided to appeal the refusal to grant Mikhail late resettler status. The attorney accordingly sent the BVA a reasoned objection, once again emphasizing the key facts in our client's favor.
Some time later, however, Mikhail contacted our firm again to say that he had discussed the situation further with his family and spoken with his grandfather, who was willing to include his grandson in his own admission decision. On this basis, the attorney was given new instructions to obtain a corresponding joint-departure permit for Mikhail and his family.
Our attorney explained to the client that, if the grandfather were to submit the corresponding request, it would first be necessary to withdraw the objection previously filed with Germany's Federal Office of Administration challenging the BVA's refusal to grant Mikhail late resettler status, since German law does not allow two parallel proceedings to be pursued in respect of the same person.
Mikhail confirmed that he would indeed proceed with the joint-departure permit procedure, so the corresponding objection was withdrawn, and the attorney provided the client and his grandfather with a list of the documents needed for submission to the BVA. The attorney then completed the relevant forms, and the entire set of documents was submitted for review by the competent government authorities.
Some time later, the Federal Office of Administration (BVA) confirmed that it was prepared to grant the grandfather's request, and our client was able to move to Germany together with every member of his family, settling not far from his grandfather.
This example from our law firm's practice illustrates that consulting an experienced attorney can bring you not only high-quality, professional legal advice and support throughout the entire process, but also the possibility of shifting to a more favorable strategy tailored to your specific case in order to achieve the result you need.
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