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.