The state interior ministers of Germany meet in Potsdam this week to discuss whether dangerous foreign criminals can be deported to such places as Afghanistan. Two opposition parties—the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the left-wing Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW)—have made their position clear: deportations should go ahead. In contrast, mainstream parties are still deliberating.
The debate on the failures of Germany’s open-border policies has been fuelled by a recent spate of knife attacks committed by migrants, with the brutal murder of a policeman by an Afghan failed asylum seeker causing a huge uproar in the country.
Straight after the attack, politicians representing the left-liberal parties that make up the federal government tried to blame the ‘far right,’ ie., the anti-immigration AfD, for stoking social tensions. Now the government is moderating its rhetoric and promising to take action.
“We are negotiating confidentially with various states to open up ways through which deportations to Afghanistan will be possible again,” Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser recently claimed in an interview, adding that the government’s aim is to deport violent offenders and Islamist extremists. Deportations to Afghanistan were suspended three years ago when the Islamist Taliban movement regained power there, and human rights organisations say that the lives of those deported to the country would be in danger.
Faeser promised to inform her state colleagues about plans for deportations to Afghanistan on Thursday, June 20th. The interior ministers of the German states already convened in Potsdam on Wednesday and many of them favoured restarting deportations to Afghanistan and Syria.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said that the federal government must quickly create the conditions for deportations, while his North Rhine-Westphalian colleague Herbert Reul said “it must be done, not just talked about.” Hamburg’s Senator for Interior Affairs Andy Grote said “anyone who commits serious crimes here must leave the country, even if they come from Afghanistan.”
In contrast, others have poured cold water on deportation attempts. Mayor of Bremen Andreas Bovenschulte fears that adopting measures too quickly “only creates annoyance and only helps populists.” Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Daniela Behrens argued that any new initiatives must be in accordance with the rule of law.
That is exactly what human rights organisations believe would not happen if people were extradited to Afghanistan. “Deportations to the Taliban regime mean stoning and flogging. Human rights also apply to perpetrators, because human rights are universal,” said the opposition Die Linke party.
According to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), there are around five-hundred known so-called Islamist Gefährder in Germany—Islamists who pose a threat to public safety, who the police believe to be capable of serious politically motivated crimes, including terrorist attacks. At least 129 of them do not have a German passport. Only 35 foreign Gefährder have been deported from Germany since 2021.
“With regard to Islamist threats, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a talker but not a doer,” the BSW leader Sahra Wagenknecht declared, adding that anyone who poses a security risk must be deported, regardless of their country of origin.
AfD MP Leif-Erik Holm said “anyone who commits a crime has forfeited his right of residence.”
Despite Chancellor Olaf Scholz claiming in October that the government would begin “large-scale” deportations, only 16,430 people were deported last year, while 31,770 planned deportations failed. Currently, Germany hosts more than 250,000 foreigners who have been ordered to leave the country.
