Germany’s Scholz under pressure to step up deportations after killing of police officer

The gruesome killing of a police officer by a 25-year-old Afghan man has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under renewed pressure to take a tougher stance on migration days ahead of a European election in which the far right is expected to make sizable gains.

On Thursday, Scholz is expected to address the killing and its ramifications during an address to parliamentarians. He is likely to call for increased deportations of migrants whose asylum claims have been rejected, particularly those who have committed criminal offenses.

“It is clear to me that people who pose a potential threat to Germany’s security must be deported quickly,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, a politician in Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), said this week. “That is why we are doing everything possible to find ways to deport criminals and dangerous people to both Syria and Afghanistan.”

It’s not the first time Germany’s SPD-led coalition government has vowed to take a tougher stance on migration. Earlier this year, the ruling coalition — consisting of the SPD, the Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) — passed a law intended to make it easier for authorities to deport migrants whose asylum claims have been rejected.

However, carrying out such deportations in practice, even for those convicted of serious crimes, remains difficult. Germany stopped deportations to Afghanistan in 2021 after the Taliban returned to power. Syria continues to be ruled by Bashar al-Assad, whose government has committed horrific atrocities against its own people.

Now, the political fallout of the brutal stabbing of a police officer by the Afghan national last week is putting the German government under pressure take a more hardline stance. The suspect in the case — who, according to authorities, appeared to be motivated by Islamist extremism — arrived in Germany in 2014, and his asylum claim had been denied.

Germany’s conservative opposition, which has shifted markedly to the right on migration since the reign of Angela Merkel, has been particularly critical of the current government’s asylum policies.

“We have been dealing increasingly with radical Islamism in Germany,” Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said after the killing, calling for “tough consequences.”

Following the stabbing, Georg Maier, the SPD interior minister of the state of Thuringia, called for talks with countries neighboring Afghanistan. Afghan migrants posing a security risk to Germany, he suggested, could first be deported to Pakistan as a way of avoiding direct cooperation with the Taliban.

National security is “more important than protecting the interests of extremists,” he said on German public radio.

The Greens, however, appear to be taking a more cautious line.

“I understand that a few people are a bit nervous before the election,” Greens party co-leader, Omid Nouripour, told public broadcaster MDR. “If you simply abandon people in border regions, they will be back in three months.”

“I understand that a few people are a bit nervous before the election,” Greens party co-leader, Omid Nouripour, told public broadcaster MDR. | Thomas Kienzle/AFP via Getty Images

Nouripour also argued that any agreement with the Taliban would be counterproductive.

“If we give money to Islamists, they can use it to build networks, which is not a contribution to our security,” he said.

Germany has not officially recognized the Taliban, but according to experts, some form of cooperation would be necessary to carry out deportations.

“If the authorities manage to convince the courts that they have identified a region in Afghanistan — in the border area with Pakistan, for example — where the living conditions are good enough for the specific person they want to deport, then there is a good chance that the courts would accept this,” Daniel Thym, a legal expert from the university of Konstanz, told public broadcaster ZDF. “Of course, you need contacts in the countries to do so, which makes it very, very difficult to implement.”

As German government leaders weigh their options, the far-right Alternative for Germany, whose politicians have previously called for a “deportation offensive,” have sought to depict themselves as the only party willing to act. The party is vying for a second-place finish in Germany’s EU election on Sunday, according to polls.

Following the killing, the party’s national co-leaders, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, called for “secure borders and a fortress Europe,” a stop to immigration and the “repatriation” of Afghan migrants already in the country.

Gordon Repinski contributed reporting.