After Chancellor Scholz fueled the debate about deportations to Afghanistan and Syria, his Interior Minister announced a tightening of the residency law. The Taliban also had their say.
Should serious criminals and dangerous individuals be deported to countries that are not considered safe, such as Afghanistan or Syria? The fatal knife attack by a 25-year-old Afghan in Mannheim has sparked a debate on this issue.
And the discussion has gained momentum again thanks to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government statement: “Such criminals should be deported – even if they come from Syria and Afghanistan. Serious criminals and terrorist threats have no place here,” said the SPD politician before the plenary session in the Bundestag.
The opposition leader, CDU party leader Friedrich Merz, reacted cautiously. Last October, the Chancellor had already spoken of large-scale deportations – since then, too little has happened. Scholz’s words were a “well-sounding formulation,” commented Merz on ZDF, demanding that “actions must now follow.”
Minister of the Interior Faeser wants Right of residence tighten
While the Chancellor failed to provide details on the implementation of his announcement, his SPD party colleague, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, explained that further options for deportations had been under consideration for some time: “Namely, the question of how we can ensure that those who have served criminal sentences here and are still considered dangerous can also be deported. And I will shortly be presenting a tightening of the residence law here.”
The plan is to include the offence of glorifying terrorism as another reason for deportation in the law. But Faeser also points out that deportations, for example to Afghanistan, are generally not so easy. “It takes so long because we cannot simply go to the airport there and bring people back there,” said the Interior Minister.
“The Taliban will want to be paid for repatriations”
Since the Islamist Taliban took power again in Kabul in the summer of 2021, there has been a deportation ban for Afghans in Germany. No country maintains diplomatic relations with Afghanistan.
Although the Taliban have shown themselves open to cooperation with Germany in a tweet, there is a catch, explains Sebastian Fischer, spokesman for the German Foreign Office: “The Taliban will at least want to be paid for any repatriations through international recognition.”
Negotiations with neighbouring countries are necessary
Cooperation with the inhumane Taliban regime, under which women and children in particular suffer, would be a big mistake, warns the Federal Government’s Human Rights Commissioner, Luise Amtsberg of the Green Party. This is probably one of the reasons why the Federal Government is considering deportations via Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries such as Pakistan or Uzbekistan. Negotiations on this are unlikely to be easy.
The Federal Minister of the Interior wants to prevent a possible misunderstanding regarding deportations: “It is not about deporting people who have been convicted, but rather they must now serve their sentence,” said Faeser. The discussion about deportations – including to Afghanistan – is ongoing. However, a quick implementation of such deportations is not to be expected.