The new German government on Monday, June 2nd, said it would continue its flagship policy of turning asylum seekers away at its borders, despite a court ruling against the practice.
Berlin’s Administrative Court ruled on Monday that people “who express the wish to seek asylum while at a border check on German territory may not be sent back” before it was determined which state was responsible for processing their claim under the EU’s so-called Dublin system.
Despite this, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said hours after the judgement that “we will continue with the pushbacks,” adding that “we think we have the legal justification for this.”
Monday’s court decision follows an appeal made by three Somali nationals who encountered an immigration check at a train station at Frankfurt an der Oder on the Polish border on May 9.
They expressed their wish to claim asylum in Germany but were sent back to Poland the same day.
Despite vowing to crack down on immigration, and to turn away asylum seekers at the border, new centre-right chancellor Friedrich Merz has backtracked on many of his campaign promises to appease his coalition partners, the pro-migration social democrats.
The coalition deal struck in April retains many of the policies pursued under the previous left-wing government and hardly introduces new measures to effectively combat illegal migration, such as consistently halting migrants at the border.
Although many asylum applications are rejected, the number of deportations remains low.Friedrich Merz recently said that “Germany is a country of immigration,” and “it will stay that way.”
