Despite the federal government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) pursuing a stricter migration policy, Berlin has taken an entirely different path. The city’s Immigration Office (LEA) has set an ambitious goal: in 2025, it plans to grant 40,000 German passports — twice as many as last year — sparking serious controversy, including accusations of staff pressure and irregularities.
Since taking office in May, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) have been steadily implementing their announced “migration policy shift.” This includes strengthening border controls, reducing the number of asylum applications, and increasing deportations — including to Afghanistan. Just last Friday, 81 criminals were deported there.
Meanwhile, in Berlin — governed by the CDU — the situation is starkly different. The Landesamt für Einwanderung (LEA), the capital’s immigration office, has significantly accelerated the naturalization process. In 2024, 21,802 foreigners received German citizenship — an achievement celebrated internally with a cake bearing the inscription “Einbürgerung 20,000” (“Naturalizations – 20,000”) during the office’s holiday festivities.
For the current year, LEA chief Engelhard Mazanke has set a record target of 40,000 naturalizations — twice as many as the previous year. According to internal LEA protocols obtained by the German daily BILD, 20,600 foreigners had already become German citizens by the end of June 2025. The official justification for such high figures includes administrative savings in managing foreigners and an aim to reduce the “foreigner quota” in city statistics.
These high targets are reportedly putting pressure on LEA employees. An anonymous official told BILD that every employee in the relevant department is expected to “produce” at least eight naturalizations per week, with the reward being the option to work from home. The office partly denies this, claiming such requests are “evaluated individually.”
There are also reports of employees bypassing regulations and granting citizenship to individuals who should not have received it. On Thursday, July 18, 2025, Berlin prosecutors searched the home of an LEA employee suspected of bribery and false certification. In April, the employee allegedly granted citizenship illegally and without authorization to a family with two young children from North Macedonia.
Another growing concern is the insufficient German language skills of many applicants. An anonymous LEA worker told BILD that he had to “beg” his supervisor to postpone a naturalization ceremony due to the applicant’s extremely poor command of German. There’s also unease that individuals with antisemitic views may easily obtain citizenship, despite the requirement to declare allegiance to Germany’s liberal democratic order.
“The declaration of commitment to the liberal democratic order is often just a formality — a piece of paper and a signature,” the LEA staff member stated, adding that there is a lack of oversight, as applicants are only seen in person when receiving their documents. He pointed to this as a major flaw in the digitized process.
Officially, however, the office sees only benefits in digitization.
“How secure our digital procedure is has been demonstrated by the ongoing investigation against the former employee of the Landesamt für Einwanderung,” commented LEA chief Engelhard Mazanke in response to BILD’s inquiry.