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Promotion of voluntary return/ Law on the promotion of voluntary return

People whose application for asylum has been rejected have to leave the Federal Republic of Germany. While this can happen through forced return by the state (deportation), refugees can also decide to leave the country at any point in the asylum procedure. State funded programmes financially and organisationally support this so-called “voluntary return”. In the beginning of the 1980s, the German federal government passed the Law on the promotion of voluntary return and introduced a repatriation grant to create incentives for the labour migrants who came to Germany during the time of the labour recruitment agreements to return to their regions or countries of origin (s. repatriation grant).