Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised that Germany will start deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria again after a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant last week left one police officer dead and four more people injured.
The country was shocked by the brutal attack in Mannheim which was captured on video and quickly went viral online.
On Thursday, Scholz addressed parliament in a speech focused on security – just days before European elections that could see far-right populists across the continent making major gains.
“I am outraged when someone who sought protection here commits heinous crimes. Such lawbreakers should be deported whether they come from Syria or Afghanistan,” said the Chancellor while being applauded by representatives of the lower house.
The 25-year-old attacker arrived in Germany as an asylum-seeker in 2014 and killed a 29-year-old police officer who tried to stop him.
For almost all nationalistic and mainstream political parties, migration has been one of the key issues during this campaign for European Parliament elections so far. Parties which have taken advantage of millions of new migrants coming to Europe escaping wars, hunger, climate change or simply looking for better tomorrow.
At present, Germany does not deport any persons to Afghanistan or Syria. The German government of Berlin has no diplomatic contacts with the Taliban based in Kabul; it has also considered Syria’s security situation too unstable to allow deportation there.
Nevertheless, as stated by the Chancellor during his address, there is already ongoing work towards enabling convicted Afghans to be sent back to their neighboring countries. There were talks held in Germany about the possibility of resuming deportations to Syria.
In addition, Scholz pledged that some others who engage or facilitate terrorist activities will now face stricter immigration rules too.
It is unclear how much faster if at all can German bureaucracy make further expulsion of criminal aliens since it often slows down any political decisions on international migrants among them.
The parliamentary leader from Britta Hasselmann, who is from the environmental Greens that form part of Scholz’ ruling coalition asked if it was possible to carry out these plans by the Chancellor.
It would be difficult, she said, to negotiate a deportation agreement with the Taliban or Afghanistan’s neighboring countries.
“It will have to be (…) examined for which third country it should be attractive to take in terrorists or serious criminals. I am looking forward to seeing what answers we come up with,” she said.
Many Germans initially welcomed migrants when more than 1 million people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq came in 2015-16 following wars and instability in their home countries, but the mood has changed in recent years.
Germany’s far right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has taken advantage of some German citizens’ reservations about the new arrivals. Nonetheless, millions of Germans have moved out to the streets in recent months to protest against the far-right, who want to deport millions of immigrants including those with German passports should they come into power.
Some scandals surrounding key members of the party in European Union (EU) elections, pointing at their alleged connections with Russia and China as well as an occurrence whereby a senior leader within this party kept on repeating Nazi slogans, have made it lose grounds according to a number of recent surveys.
To avoid voters turning to anti-migrant AfD for dealing with migration issues, Scholz together other established parties like Social Democrats has been trying to portray themselves as hardliners on immigration and radical Islam.
