After the acts of terrorism in Solingen - The conservative CDU and the far-right AfD advocate for more uniform expulsions.
Opposition in Lower Saxony's state parliament advocates for stricter enforcement of deportations following knife attack in Solingen. "We can't just let individuals who resist deportation roam free, hoping they'll turn up elsewhere. We need to apprehend them and detain them. This is the type of consistency we expect from this state government," stated Sebastian Lechner, CDU fraction leader.
Lechner proposed the provision of adequate detention facilities and argued against distributing criminals and identity fraudsters to municipalities. He dismissed Interior Minister Daniela Behrens' (SPD) plans to strengthen gun laws as a "distraction," as knives are already prohibited at public events. Instead, he advocated for increased random police checks, enhanced video surveillance, and a more effective domestic intelligence agency, including measures such as monitoring living spaces and online searches.
AfD: "Secure borders from refugees"
AfD fraction leader Klaus Wichmann claimed that such incidents, like the one in Solingen, are "almost always" perpetrated by refugees, particularly those required to leave the country. "How do we solve this issue? By deporting them. If they're not here, they can't commit crimes," said Wichmann, also advocating for a complete ban on refugee admissions: "We must secure our borders from refugees."
Interior Minister Behrens confirmed that those not granted asylum must leave Germany. "We're working on this. If they don't leave voluntarily, we'll deport them. And that's what we're doing."
"Challenging asylum law is mistaken"
Behrens maintained that the debate following the Solingen incident should not be exaggerated or trivialized. However, she warned that terror, asylum, migration, knife crime, and Islamic extremism are currently being conflated. "The extremists have already achieved their goal: many people are terrified, political demands are mounting, and populists are trying to divide society," said Behrens, emphasizing: "Using Solingen to challenge asylum law is mistaken."
Green fraction leader Detlev Schulz-Hendel warned that a complete ban on refugee admission from Afghanistan and Syria, as proposed by CDU leader Friedrich Merz, would violate asylum law principles. "Denying entire groups of people the right to asylum is legally untenable," said Schulz-Hendel.
In the first half of 2024, 9,465 deportations were carried out nationwide, including 679 in Lower Saxony. As of June 30, 20,677 people in Lower Saxony were subject to deportation, including 11,726 rejected asylum seekers, around 10,000 of whom held residence permits due to safety concerns in their home country.
On Friday evening, three people were killed and eight injured, four severely, at a city festival in Solingen. The suspected attacker, a 26-year-old Syrian, is now in custody. The federal prosecutor's office is investigating him for murder and suspected membership in the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization.
The Commission should rigorously enforce deportation policies to ensure individuals resisting deportation are apprehended and detained, as suggested by Sebastian Lechner, the CDU fraction leader in Lower Saxony's state parliament. Furthermore, The Commission needs to address the issue of individuals required to leave the country who perpetrate crimes, as advocated by AfD fraction leader Klaus Wichmann.
