Germans Want Safety from Immigrant Crime. Will Their Government Allow It?

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Germans have been clamoring for years for safety from migrants and so-called “asylees.” The threat of immigrant crime and terrorism has led to the rise of the Alternative for Germany political party and calls for an end to mass immigration. German politicians are also calling for tightened controls at Germany’s own borders, because the EU borders are so porous. Paul Hockenos reports in Foreign Policy:

In the context of a turbulent and unsatisfying three years in office, the incredibly awful September in progress might rank as the three-party German government’s grimmest month yet. After elections in the east that issued record results for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party—another vote, in Brandenburg, looms on Sept. 22—the government is also reeling from the fallout of two Islamist terrorist attacks that left three dead and eight wounded. One of those attacks involved a Syrian asylum-seeker whose petition for protection in Germany had been denied; he had links to the fundamentalist Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

Now the government has announced its response: starting on Sept. 16, Germany will unilaterally impose border closures, for six months, on all nine of its borders with other European countries. Incoming foreign nationals will be screened according to arbitrary criteria, and rejected applicants will be forced onto Germany’s next-door neighbors.

Although some details remain unclear, Germany’s plan amounts to an unprecedented step. Eight of the neighboring countries are EU members, and all of them are part of the Schengen regime that guarantees freedom of movement across borders within the bloc and recognizes the right to political asylum. Meanwhile, Germany’s mainstream opposition party is demanding an even more severe policy—one that would essentially prevent the country from accepting any new asylum applicants onto its territory at all.

“Until we achieve strong protection of the EU’s external borders with the new common European asylum system, we must strengthen controls at our national borders,” said Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser. Her proposal involves expedited procedures at the German frontiers to determine whether each person who arrives may enter and apply for political asylum.

According to Faeser, the planned border screenings will limit illegal migration and “protect against the acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime.” There will be more deportations during this period, she said, but they will conform to EU law. But some experts disagree. European law expert Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European law at HEC Paris, told the Guardian that the German controls “represent a manifestly disproportionate breach of the principle of free movement within the Schengen area.”

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