The new Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt from the conservative (CSU) has to curb irregular immigration.
Non-EU citizens without a visa will be turned back. This includes asylum seekers without valid entry documents and those who have already submitted an asylum application in another European Union country.
Dobrindt announced that the federal police now have the option to refuse entry but are not required to do so. This means they can decide on a case-by-case basis.
Pregnant women, sick people, unaccompanied minors, and other vulnerable individuals will not be refused entry.
Reasons for the new policy
The order is based on one of Chancellor ‘s key election pledges: to tighten controls at Germany’s borders from his first day in office.
With this measure, the interior minister is hoping to prevent migrants from trying to reach Germany in the first place. The aim is also to motivate EU neighbors to stop migrants from passing through to Germany. Germany has land borders with nine countries, all of which it considers safe havens.
Chancellery Minister Thorsten Frei told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday that the measures are necessary because of the ineffective protection of the EU’s external borders. He said migration must be reduced to a “tolerable level.”
Many German cities and municipalities have been complaining for years about overburdened schools, exploding housing costs, and an overburdened healthcare system.
The legal basis
In 2015, when thousands of refugees from the civil war in Syria arrived at Germany’s borders every day, former Chancellor and her Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière decided not to turn away any asylum seekers at the border.
Dobrindt has now reversed this 2015 directive to the federal police.
The refusals are legally controversial. Article 18 of the German Asylum Act states: “Foreigners shall be refused entry if they are entering from a safe third country.” This is the case at all German borders because all neighboring countries are deemed safe.
European legislation, however, mandates that the first step is to determine which country is responsible for the migrant’s asylum application. Normally, this is the country where the migrant first entered the EU.
In practice, however, many continued on to Germany, where complicated legal procedures have allowed many to stay.
An alternative would be to invoke the so-called “emergency situations” in Article 72 of the EU Treaty. This allows for temporary deviation from EU law for “the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security.” However, the obstacles are high.
During his visit to Brussels late last week, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said: “No one in the German government, including me personally, has declared an emergency.”
The former President of the , Hans-Jürgen Papier, believes that refusing entry to asylum seekers is legal. He told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper: “In my view, part of a state’s inalienable right of sovereignty includes not letting in every person who utters the word ‘asylum.’ It is possible and right under German law — as well as under European law.”
German political reactions to the measures
Left-wing politicians feel that border controls and rejections go too far, while others feel they don’t go far enough.
In the Rheinische Post newspaper, Katharina Dröge Green Party co-leader of the parliamentary group, called the rejections “obviously in breach of European law.”
“People who apply for asylum on German soil have a right to have it reviewed,” she added.
Strong criticism was voiced also by Sören Pellmann, parliamentary group co-leader of the Left Party, during the party’s convention. “Those who pursue right-wing policies out of fear of the right can only lose,” he said. The Left will stand against the new measures.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD), which is part of the government, is calling for close coordination with neighboring countries, which are far from enthusiastic about these new measures.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), on the other hand, would like to see the country close itself off even more. Party leader Alice Weidel said that Merz had promised a change in migration policy with “clear measures against illegal mass immigration.” In her view, however, he is now disappointing voters and caving in to the SPD.
EU context
German neighbors Poland and Switzerland have expressed concern about Germany’s actions. They fear that they will now have to take back large numbers of rejected migrants.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has insisted that other countries are being consulted. “Germany is not going it alone here. We are coordinating with our European neighbors,” said Merz on Friday in Brussels.
However, it seems that the German government also intends the controls to be an incentive for action to be taken on the EU level. Frei said that the German government wanted to fall back on other “preferably European” measures in migration policy.
The EU is now clearly moving towards isolation. This is also taking shape as anti-asylum parties and governments are on the rise in an increasing number of member states.
The has already passed a new, stricter asylum law which has not yet been implemented. Among other things, the planned EU asylum reform stipulates that future asylum applications from people with little prospect of staying will be decided at the EU’s external borders.
Frei has not only criticized the European asylum law reforms for coming too late, but also for being insufficient. He said that this is the reason that 16 EU governments have called on the EU Commission to revise the rules.
First figures
Following the new border decree, an initial assessment was published in the tabloid Bild am Sonntag: The federal police registered 365 unauthorized attempted entries across all German borders in those two days. Overall, 286 individuals were turned back, including 19 who sought asylum. The main reasons for the rejections were a lack of a valid visa, forged documents, or entry bans. Four people were classified as “vulnerable” and were allowed to enter the country.
The newspaper also reported that 14 smugglers were provisionally arrested, 48 outstanding arrest warrants were executed, and nine people categorized as extremist or Islamist were apprehended as they entered the country.
This article was originally written in German.
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