Solingen attack: Will asylum law now be tightened?

The shock from Solingen is deep. Three dead, eight injured. And many questions. Not least: What will happen as a result of the fatal knife attack? The Union in particular is now increasing the pressure on the federal government to draw far-reaching consequences in asylum policy.

On Saturday evening, a 26-year-old Syrian turned himself in to the police and confessed to the attack. Whether the suspect actually acted on behalf of the so-called Islamic State (IS), as the terrorist militia claims, is still being investigated. According to reports, the man was supposed to be deported to Bulgaria last year because his asylum application had been rejected.

“Enough is enough!” complains CDU leader Friedrich Merz and is now demanding a series of consequences. The proposals that are now on the table:

Admission freeze for refugees from Syria and Afghanistan

“The problem is not the knives, but the people who carry them around,” Merz concluded from the attack in Solingen. In the majority of cases, these are refugees, especially those with Islamist motives. In order to prevent further “terrorist attacks,” the CDU leader is suggesting a kind of ban on accepting refugees from Syria and Afghanistan: no more refugees from these countries should be accepted, the opposition leader demands.

The federal government considers a general admission freeze to be unconstitutional. “That would violate the Basic Law and presumably also EU human rights regulations,” said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.

The individual right to asylum is protected by the constitution (Article 16a), so any legal adjustment would be tied to high hurdles and would require a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag and Bundesrat. Government spokesman Hebestreit has practically ruled out this possibility: He sees “no efforts by those who support the government to change anything in this article of the constitution”. In other words: the traffic light coalition is not going along with it.

According to Sebastian Hartmann, domestic policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, there is no need for a legal adjustment – instead, “the existing law simply needs to be applied”. The responsible state authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia are also called upon here, Hartmann told the star: “Why was the current residence law not applied? Why was the radicalized extremist and later perpetrator not taken into account by the state police?”

The SPD interior politician is referring to the fact that the suspect was not deported to Bulgaria, which was reportedly supposed to take place in June last year. However, because the authorities were unable to find the 26-year-old Syrian in his refugee accommodation in Paderborn, as reported by “Spiegel”, the six-month transfer period under EU law expired. The result, roughly summarized: Germany became responsible for the case, and the suspect was later granted limited protection status.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst announced a comprehensive investigation. “If something went wrong somewhere, at any authority, whether locally in Bielefeld, in Paderborn or at state or federal authorities, then the truth must come out,” he said.

Unlimited detention pending deportation

Another demand from CDU leader Merz: “We will take every criminal who is required to leave the country into deportation custody for an unlimited period of time.” What is that – and what is it supposed to achieve?

First of all, a distinction must be made between detention pending departure and deportation detention. Detention pending departure may last a maximum of 28 days and can be ordered if there is a risk of flight. At the beginning of the year, the traffic light coalition extended the possible duration from ten to 28 days. The aim: to give the authorities more time to prepare deportations and prevent those being deported from going into hiding.

Deportation detention (Section 62, Residence Act), on the other hand, can be ordered in the form of so-called preventive detention for up to six months and then extended for a maximum of twelve months. However, only if the reasons for someone not being deported lie with the person concerned and not with the authorities.

It is already possible to detain people who are required to leave the country for 18 months under certain conditions. At the same time, refugee organizations such as ProAsyl have been very critical of the conditions in deportation prisons.

An expansion would therefore be difficult in several respects and would not effectively change the fact that the number of deportations carried out, although it has increased by around 30 percent this year, is still low.

And as already mentioned: In the case of the suspected Solingen attacker, the deportation apparently failed because he was not found at his then registered address, a refugee shelter in Paderborn, in June 2023. It must therefore now be clarified why no new attempt was made after he reappeared.

The transfer period expires after six months. However, it can be extended to 18 months if the person concerned has gone into hiding. According to information from “Spiegel”, the deportation did not take place because the suspect was considered inconspicuous and there were not enough places available for deportation. Here, too, an extended deportation detention would probably not achieve anything.

Deportations to Syria and Afghanistan

Serious criminals and terrorist threats should be deported quickly – “even if they come from Syria and Afghanistan”: This is what Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after a fatal knife attack in Mannheim three months ago.

The plan is now back in focus following the recent knife attack, although the Syrian suspect does not fall into this category according to current knowledge: under European asylum law, he should have been transferred to Bulgaria, especially since he probably only committed a crime in Germany. Nevertheless, during a visit to Solingen, the Chancellor reiterated his intention to deport people more consistently.

However, the difficult situation has not changed with regard to Syria and Afghanistan. Repatriations to Afghanistan have been suspended since August 2021, at the time in response to the Taliban’s seizure of power. There are also no deportations to Syria, where dictator Assad has been waging war against his citizens since 2011. The Foreign Office again pointed out that there are no diplomatic relations with either country and that fighting is taking place everywhere in Syria, for example.

Nevertheless, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faseser (SPD) wants to continue to rely on deportation agreements with the two countries. The minister is convinced that there are ways and means to make this possible, said a spokeswoman for her ministry. Negotiations with various states are underway. Together with the states, intensive work is being done to be able to implement “deportations of dangerous people and violent criminals to Afghanistan and Syria in particular.”

That doesn’t sound like quick results. Moreover, the SPD politician had already announced at the end of July that she was in confidential negotiations with other countries so that Syrians and Afghans could be deported to their homeland via neighboring countries. The talks are obviously proving difficult.

Stronger border controls

In recent months, there have been repeated calls for tighter controls at the German borders to reduce irregular migration. After the attack in Solingen, Alexander Throm, domestic policy spokesman for the Union faction, reiterated this demand. He is in favor of reintroducing controls at all German borders.

In recent months, Interior Minister Faeser has already expanded border controls at Germany’s borders. These had actually been abolished within the EU, so that people can move freely within the so-called Schengen area – although there may be exceptions to this if, for example, public order is seriously threatened.

For example, there have been temporary stationary controls at the German-Austrian border since the refugee summer of 2015, which have been repeatedly extended since then. Last October, after much hesitation, Faeser also introduced such controls at the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland in response to the sharp increase in refugee numbers.

With some success, at least that was the Interior Minister’s assessment in April: “Since October, we have arrested 708 people smugglers during our border controls and prevented 17,600 illegal entries.” When controls were introduced at all German borders during the European Football Championship – including those with France, Denmark and the Netherlands – not only the opposition but also politicians from the traffic light parties called for this measure to be extended beyond the sporting event.

On paper, it’s not that easy: for every new six-month extension of controls, the federal government must prove that there is a serious threat that justifies the measure. In practice, however, the EU Commission does not look so closely, for political reasons, said legal scholar Walther Michl from the Bundeswehr University in Munich to “Spiegel”. “It is accepted as a new threat if we simply alternate between drug smuggling, human trafficking and even major global political situations such as the situation in the Middle East.” According to the lawyer, the Commission could actually initiate infringement proceedings against Germany.

In any case, one thing is certain: if controls were temporarily reinstated at all German borders, it would require a lot of manpower. Interior Minister Faeser spoke of a “huge effort” during the European Championships. The same applies to CSU leader Markus Söder’s demand that a border police force should be set up across the country in addition to the federal police, as is already the practice in Bavaria.