Maria Zadnepryanets fell in love with Germany when she first arrived. The Russian software developer came to North Rhine-Westphalia a decade ago to study and was captivated by the freedoms, public services, and educational opportunities. Now, after a four-year struggle with Berlin’s bureaucracy, she feels like “a second-class citizen.”
“I came to Germany with a very naive idea of what it’s like to live here,” she told DW. “I thought it was a fair place. My expectation was that people are treated equally by the state, and this experience has given me a different message.”
In her early years in Germany, Zadnepryanets integrated quickly: she learned German, found a well-paying job in a modern sector, and settled in the capital. In 2020, she submitted her naturalization documents in Berlin’s Pankow district but heard nothing for months, then years. After her emails were ignored, she consulted a lawyer who suggested taking the Pankow office to court. Instead, she resorted to sending faxes to escalate her case. The office asked for more documents, which she sent, but again received no response.
“How I understood things with this whole citizenship story was: I do my part, I work, I contribute, I learn the language, I integrate, and then after a certain period of time I will be given citizenship,” she said. “It felt like I had done all these things, but that part of the deal was just not happening.”
German Bureaucracy is Not German at All
Zadnepryanets is not alone—many skilled workers in Germany have formed social media groups to vent their frustrations with German bureaucracy. In late June, some protested outside the LEA office in Berlin, calling for “a fair and transparent processing of citizenship applications.”
Many feel that only legal action will get them to the top of the pile by filing a “Untätigkeitsklage,” or “failure to act lawsuit,” against the immigration authorities. This complaint can be filed if an authority has not responded to an application for six months after receiving all necessary documents.
Migrants in Germany Appreciate New Naturalization Law
One applicant who resorted to legal action was Imran Ahmed, who requested his name be changed for fear of prejudicing his case at the LEA, Berlin’s immigration and citizenship authority. “By this time I have lost trust in the fairness of the authorities and am worried that I will be punished for sharing my story,” he told DW.
Ahmed, a Pakistani software engineer with a wife and young son, submitted his application three years ago after earning a master’s degree in Darmstadt and finding a good job. He heard nothing for 18 months, then was asked to provide newer copies of the same documents. “Since then, blackout,” he said.
“I always wanted to come to Germany—the habits of German people were always something I could relate to: being on time, saying things in a straightforward way, being organized,” he said. “But German bureaucracy is not German at all. In my workplace and everywhere else I’ve seen German punctuality and organization, but whenever you deal with the bureaucracy, it feels like it comes from a Third World country.”
Frustrated and stressed by the long wait, which he said has led to health issues, Ahmed wrote to several members of the Berlin state parliament in January to ask how applications were being processed.
Berlin Authorities Switch Systems to Streamline Naturalizations
This year, Berlin authorities switched systems to streamline naturalizations by shifting the administration from the 12 municipal authorities to a centralized office for immigration and citizenship, the LEA. This new authority replaced the previously required in-person interview with an online “quick check” to determine whether the applicant fulfilled the relevant conditions in terms of income, length of stay, and language.
Laura Neugebauer of the Green Party was the only parliamentarian to reply to Ahmed’s questions. Her party submitted an official information request, revealing that it was “almost impossible” for the LEA to process the oldest applications first, as they were receiving the applications from the municipalities in batches without noting the date of application.
“This was mindboggling for me,” said Ahmed.
A Mountain of Old Applications
An LEA spokesperson sympathized with people’s frustrations but explained that the LEA was left with a backlog of 40,000 old applications following the transition in January, the oldest dating back to 2005.
“They understandably only see their individual waiting time and their desire for naturalization and quite rightly put it in the foreground,” he said.
Processing the oldest applications first would be inefficient, the spokesperson added, since many of them may not be complete. “We are working through a mountain of work from several sides in order to naturalize as many people as possible as quickly as possible,” he said.
Adam, from Egypt, suspects those who applied for citizenship before the new digitized system was introduced are being disadvantaged. He received his citizenship earlier this year only after filing an Untätigkeitsklage. However, the applications for his wife and three children, two of whom were born in Germany, are now stuck in the LEA’s backlog. He has now filed more suits on their behalf, costing over €3,000 ($3,600).
“There are people who applied online who are getting it in two or three months, and the people who applied offline, it’s ignored,” he said.
State Aims to Double Naturalization Rate
Berlin’s Interior Minister Iris Spranger said the state aims to double the number of naturalizations per year to 20,000. The LEA said it is on track to meet that target for 2024 but still had to work on the 40,000 old applications.
“This is a huge challenge, not least because the number of applications has increased significantly since the reform of the nationality law came into force,” the spokesperson told DW in an email.
Zadnepryanets is not impressed. “Those applications didn’t come from the air,” she said. “Why did these 40,000 applications happen? Who is responsible?”
Things are likely to slow down before they speed up, especially since naturalization laws were relaxed in June, prompting a wave of new applications. According to the LEA, Berlin is currently receiving an average of 133 new citizenship applications every day and had already received over 25,000 this year. If that rate continues, the authorities can expect to receive over 48,000 new applications in 2024.
Despite this, local authority official Wiebke Gramm told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper in January that the target for processing applications was now six months. That seems hopelessly ambitious to Zadnepryanets, who can’t understand why more people aren’t questioning the transparency and efficiency of the system.
“I’m just frightened of waiting another five years for anyone to touch my case,” she said. She too is looking to take legal action after all.