After a deadly knife attack by a stateless criminal, Germany asks itself: Why are there so few deportations of criminals?
< p>It was a brutal act that shook all of Germany. Two weeks ago, a man randomly stabbed passengers on a regional train between Kiel and Hamburg near Brokstedt. The alleged perpetrator Ibrahim A., a 33-year-old stateless Palestinian with multiple criminal records, killed a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old and injured other people. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) also asked when she visited the crime scene: “How could it be that such a perpetrator was still here in the country?”
What exactly does deportation mean?
Foreigners who have no right to remain in Germany can in principle be deported. The reason is often that their asylum application was rejected. One speaks of deportation when a foreigner has committed a criminal offense or, for example, is a member of a terrorist organization as a threat. Such persons may be detained and then returned to their countries of origin; mostly by plane. The federal states are responsible for deportations.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) at the crime scene in Brokstedt
But Ibrahim A. was not deported, even though he had previously attracted attention for other crimes and was only released from custody shortly before the alleged crime. One reason: Ibrahim A. comes from the Gaza Strip. “In this case, however, you would have needed a state that was willing to take the person back. This state is missing in the case of stateless people,” migration researcher Gerald Knaus explained in writing to DW.
The government's repatriation offensive is a “joke “
The Berlin coalition parties SPD, Greens and FDP had also written a “repatriation offensive” in their coalition agreement. Above all, criminals and so-called endangerers should be able to be expelled from the country more quickly.
But the announcements were not followed by any action, Andrea Lindholm, interior expert for the opposition Bavarian CSU, criticized DW: “The government's announced repatriation offensive is a sad joke.”
At the end of last year, according to official figures, 304,308 people were registered as having to leave the country. The Federal Ministry of the Interior announced that 12,945 people were deported last year. Most deportees come from Georgia, Albania, Serbia, Moldova and Pakistan. The year before it was 11,982. Even before the corona pandemic, in 2019, the number was 22,000. Almost twice as high.
Migration researcher Gerald Knaus: “You need a state that is willing to person.”
“In fact, the traffic light did almost nothing,” criticizes the CSU MP Lindholz. Deportations are indeed hard for the individuals concerned. However, they are a “necessary consequence of our asylum and residence rights”.
The domestic politician of the left, Clara Bünger, on the other hand, is worried because those affected are too often deported to countries where there is war, political repression or poverty. “In everyday deportation, there is always police violence, humiliation and shackles,” adds Bünger.
Federal government wants agreements with countries of origin
According to its own statements, the coalition government wants to deport people faster and more consistently. Now there is a face and an office. The former integration minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Joachim Stamp (FDP), will take up the post of special representative for migration agreements on February 1st. The new office is located in the Ministry of the Interior. He outlines his program in a press release as follows: “Anyone who wants to work in Germany must be given fair opportunities.” On the other hand, offenders and those who are at risk would have to be deported. To do this, it is necessary to establish “practical and partnership-based agreements with key countries of origin”.
He should set it right now: the new special representative for migration agreements, Joachim Stamp (FDP)
The migration researcher Gerald Knaus considers the new office to be a fundamentally good idea. “The focus on all deportable threats and criminals” is ambitious, says Knaus in a DW interview. But “forming European coalitions” is just as important for this purpose.
Many European countries are at the limit. There are more asylum seekers than in a long time. In addition, four million people have fled Ukraine to EU countries to seek protection from the war in their homeland.
The EU also wants to deport people faster. In the entire European Union, only every fifth foreigner without a right to stay was deported last year. “We have a very low return rate and I see that we can make significant progress here,” said EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson recently.
Police accompany a rejected asylum seeker to a deportation flight
One of the main reasons for the slow deportation is problems with the countries of origin, which do not want to take back their citizens, said Johansson. She wants to put more pressure on the countries of origin. Deportations are fundamentally difficult “because other countries have to cooperate and often have no interest in doing so,” migration researcher Knaus told DW. The Balkan states, Moldova and Georgia cooperated very well, said Knaus, because they did not want their citizens to be deprived of their visa-free status for the EU.
EU wants to increase pressure
According to an EU paper, visa policy is “one of the most important instruments for improving cooperation with third countries in the area of return and readmission”. This could mean, for example, that the deadline for processing visa applications from countries that are unwilling to accept them is extended or visa fees are increased. Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria are considered to be the black sheep.
Recruitment and deportation: Germany as an immigration country?
Such countries often do not even issue documents to their citizens, or they do not recognize EU papers. A return is then practically impossible. The EU has already taken a tougher approach to issuing visas to Bangladesh, Iraq, Gambia and Senegal. According to the EU, the pressure could also be increased by little economic or development aid to uncooperative countries. But the German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser spoke out against it. She has been criticized for this by the opposition. “Faeser talks about deportations in Berlin, but blocks them in Brussels,” CSU expert Lindholz told DW.
The alleged assassin on the German regional train could probably not be expelled from the country, although he had previously was noticed by another knife attack. But Interior Minister Faeser's question “Why are people who are so violent still here in Germany?” has often been asked since then. There are high expectations of the government's new migration representative, Joachim Stamp, that criminals and those who are at risk will be deported more consistently in the future.