Germany will push on with non permanent border controls past a September deadline because it cracks down on irregular immigration, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt mentioned Thursday (August 7, 2025).
Berlin additionally plans to deport extra rejected asylum seekers with prison information to Taliban-run Afghanistan and to war-scarred Syria, Mr. Dobrindt mentioned in a podcast with media outlet Table.Today.
Germany’s conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed a troublesome crackdown on irregular immigration, saying that is the one means to stem rising help for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) social gathering.
A spate of lethal assaults blamed on asylum seekers and different overseas nationals fuelled public fears in the course of the marketing campaign for the February election, in which the AfD scored a file 20%.
“We will continue to maintain the border controls” past the September 15 deadline, Mr. Dobrindt mentioned concerning the measures first launched final yr beneath the earlier authorities of Olaf Scholz and prolonged by six months in March.
“We are in agreement with our European partners that this is a necessary measure until the (EU) external border protection system is fully operational,” he mentioned.
Members of Europe’s Schengen space are allowed to quickly reintroduce border controls for up to two years in response to severe threats comparable to terrorism or large-scale unauthorised migration.
Mr. Merz’s authorities additional tightened the border checks when it took energy in early May, transferring to additionally reject most asylum seekers — a step that sparked an outcry from human rights teams.
Federal police numbers deployed day by day on the borders had been stepped up to 14,000 from 11,000.
According to ministry knowledge, 9,254 folks had been turned again at German land borders between May 8 and July 31 — with most recorded instances from Afghanistan adopted by Algeria, Eritrea and Somalia.
Germany’s border with France noticed probably the most rejections, at greater than 2,000 in that interval, adopted by Poland, Switzerland and Austria.
Germany has additionally twice deported migrants convicted of offences to Afghanistan, most just lately final month when 81 had been despatched again — a transfer Mr. Dobrindt mentioned “cannot remain a one-off measure”.
Amnesty International criticised the deportations, saying the state of affairs in Afghanistan was “catastrophic” and that “extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture are commonplace”.
Mr. Dobrindt additionally mentioned Berlin was working to organise deportation flights to Syria, the place an Islamist-led offensive toppled longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December.
