Germany to extend border controls to ‘curb illegal immigration’

The measure aims to “reduce illegal immigration” in a context of Strong surge of the far-right AfD party. Germany will extend controls to all its borders, the government of Olaf Scholz announced on Monday, September 9, under pressure to toughen its asylum policy. “We continue to apply our hard line against irregular immigration”argued Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, referring to new measures.

Temporary checks with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark will be put in place for six months from September 16, details a press release from the Ministry of the Interior. They will be added to the checks already in place at the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland.

Berlin considers the strengthening of controls necessary for “protecting internal security against current threats of Islamist terrorism and cross-border crime”two weeks after the attack in Solingen claimed by the Islamic State group. The Interior Ministry informed that it had notified the European Union (EU) authorities of these new controls, as they are exceptional measures on EU territory that Brussels must be informed of. Austria has already warned that it “would not accept people turned away from Germany”according to comments by Interior Minister Gerhard Karner to the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The Solingen attack on people’s minds

Since the triple stabbing in Solingen, the alleged perpetrator of which was a 26-year-old Syrian who should have been deported, Mr Scholz’s coalition has shown its determination to be firm in terms of immigration control. In the wake of this attack, the government announced the withdrawal of aid to asylum seekers who entered another EU state before going to Germany.

Berlin also wants to speed up the expulsion of refugees who have been convicted of criminal offences. At the end of August, Germany sent 28 Afghans convicted of crimes back to their country, for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. A year ago, it had already strengthened its border controls in a context of a sharp rise in the number of asylum applications.

Social Democrat Mr Scholz, who governs with the Greens and the Liberals, boasted on Sunday of having “achieved the biggest change in the last ten or twenty years in the management of immigration”claiming this hardening after the welcoming policy embodied by the former conservative chancellor Angela Merkel.

The conservative opposition (CDU) has been urging the government for several days to make wider use of this highly controversial practice of returning asylum seekers to the EU country through which they arrived, without allowing them to apply for asylum in Germany. Berlin says it has worked out a legal solution “in accordance with European law” that M^me Faeser is due to provide details on Tuesday.

Asylum and immigration policy has also returned to the centre of debate in Germany with the strong rise of the far-right AfD party, which achieved record results in two regional elections in early September. A new left-wing party, the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which calls for tighter control of migration flows, also made spectacular progress in these elections.

During the 2015-2016 migration crisis, Europe’s largest economy took in more than a million refugees, including many Syrians. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Germany has taken in around a million Ukrainian exiles who fled their country.