More than 300 advocacy groups and international organizations have written an open letter to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz opposing the possibility of holding asylum seekers in third countries for processing.
"Please issue a clear rejection of plans to outsource asylum procedures," the authors demand in the letter published on Wednesday. The signatories include Amnesty International Germany, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and the migrant advocacy group Pro Asyl.
The open letter was released ahead of Scholz's meeting with the the leaders of Germany's 16 states on Thursday in Berlin, where the issue is expected to be a major topic.
Germany's Interior Ministry is currently examining the possibility of outsourcing asylum proceedings to third countries outside the European Union.
State interior ministers are also convening for a three-day beginning on Wednesday evening which is expected to be dominated with talk of migration policy, asylum and deportations. They are meeting in Potsdam, a Berlin suburb.
The killing of a policeman by a knife-wielding migrant in late May in the German city of Mannheim has prompted renewed debate about whether Germany should deport people convicted of serious crimes to countries like Syria and Afghanistan.
Deportations to those countries as well as third-country asylum proceedings are expected to be discussed during the three-day meeting of interior ministers, which opens on Wednesday evening and runs through Friday.
