Germany’s Scholz under pressure to step up deportations after police officer’s murder – POLITICO

This is not the first time that Germany’s SPD-led coalition government has pledged to take a tougher stance on migration. Earlier this year, the ruling coalition – made up of the SPD, Greens and Free Democratic Party (FDP) – passed a law intended to make it easier for authorities to deport migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected .

However, carrying out such expulsions 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 from the brutal killing of a police officer by an Afghan national last week is putting pressure on the German government to take a tougher stance. The suspect in that case — who authorities said appeared motivated by Islamist extremism — arrived in Germany in 2014 and his request for asylum was rejected.

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

“We are increasingly confronted with radical Islamism in Germany,” said Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), after the assassination, calling for “serious consequences.”

After the stabbing attack, Georg Maier, SPD Interior Minister of the state of Thuringia, called for negotiations with Afghanistan’s neighboring countries. Afghan migrants posing a security risk to Germany, he suggested, could first be deported to Pakistan to avoid direct cooperation with the Taliban.