Brand speech against asylum law: with which the BAMF boss is right

German and European asylum policy is cynical and inhuman. The head of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said it in a much -noticed speech at the beginning of the week. Since then, Trumpism has been assumed and the resignation is suggested by the SPD, the Greens and the left. Bamf boss Eckhard Sommer is right in many points.

The status quo in asylum policy is no longer acceptable. Not for refugees and not for the receiving companies.

The right of the stronger has long been the case: it is not the most vulnerable people in Europe, but mostly young men who can afford the costs for tractors. In 2023, more than 70 percent of asylum seekers were male, over half of all men between 16 and 40. Many of them are poverty migrants, not politically persecuted, for whom asylum law was once intended.

The EU countries have made refugees significantly more difficult to cross the border in recent years. They areolate themselves with fences, drones, boundaries against migrants. The escape to Europe has become more and more dangerous. The current system ensures a flourishing business for tractor gangs and the autocratic regime around the EU.

Despite sometimes brutal countermeasures from the EU, the number of refugees is growing in Germany. In the meantime, 3.5 million people in this country are refugees, as many as not since the Second World War. How many more people can integrate a community from all over the world?

Of course, there are glimmer of hope. Most recently, 35 percent fewer migrants came to Germany than in the first quarter of the previous year. However, this is not primarily the success of Germany, but a result of the closure of the Balkan route through Serbia. However, as Bamf boss Sommer said, this should not be permanent. At the same time, Vladimir Putin always uses refugees as an instrument of his hybrid warfare.

Yes, Germany needs migration. For this reason, too, one would have to make it easier for those who are recognized as entitled to asylum, the arrival in this country, integrate them. It needs quick procedures, quick language courses, quick jobs.

But who should do it all with such a large number? Who should pay for it? Around 40 billion euros a year are already being taken up for supply every year, and ten billion flow into combating the causes of escape.

The municipalities are overwhelmed, language teachers, social workers, educators are missing. More psychological care? Absolutely! Only there are no necessary psychologists. In the big cities, women, old people and children vegetate in major accommodation. Not because you want to punish them, but because apartments are missing for everyone. Asylum procedures last years. The political costs are not even included.

German politics meanwhile leads phantom debates. Olaf Scholz conjures up deportations “on a large scale”, knowing that even as a rejected refugee, you have to be unlucky to be deported. Friedrich Merz promised a “factual freezing stop” of refugees in the election campaign, only to give it later that of course you could not protect around 4,000 kilometers of German border completely and certainly did not want to close. Flying migrants in states such as Rwanda also looks like a helpless idea.

All of these demands are good for headlines. As a result, they are hardly serious. They will therefore lead to disappointments among the citizens. To distrust towards democratic politics. How sovereign is a state that does not have sovereignty over the protection of its limits?

Sommer derives a radical step from this cynical and politically dangerous status quo. The BAMF boss wants to abolish the individual right to asylum. At the same time, he warns the federal government of national sole courses and instead wants to create a system in which the EU takes up a large number of refugees every year within the framework of humanitarian programs. Similar to how Canada does.

There are strong arguments against this drastic conclusion. What happens when the quotas are exhausted? What happens when a particularly large number of people have to flee in a short time – for example through a natural disaster or a civil war? Can an end of asylum law endanger the global refugee protection as “one -time law”?

These questions touch the core of European values. But the current system violates it at least as well.

Summer’s basic idea is not trumpistically and not a reason for resignation. Rather, he asks the question that is crucial for his office: How do you stop as many people as possible from going to Germany on the deadly and in many cases and still helps people in need?

Even if you do not share your conclusion, you should listen to the long-time BAMF boss instead of insulting him. The situation has hardly improves the situation around the unfair EU asylum system so far. If money is also canceled in the ongoing coalition talks in combating the causes of flight and existing recording programs, this shows above all how little the problem is understood.

Sommer’s speech must be a wake -up call for German politics.