Immediate program for the deportation of serious criminals demanded

Saxon Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) has called for an immediate program from the German government in the next two months for the deportation of serious criminals and terrorist "endangerers" to Afghanistan and Syria. "We will have a game changer if the Foreign Minister and the Federal Minister of the Interior manage to send the first planes to these countries with multiple and serious offenders as part of an immediate program over the next eight weeks," said Schuster at the Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK) in Potsdam on Thursday. The social impact would be immense, "that we finally make it clear: These people are coming out of the country, including to Afghanistan and Syria."

On Thursday, the interior ministers of the federal states debated with Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) about deportations to these countries as a consequence of the fatal knife attack by an Afghan in Mannheim. The problem: Afghanistan is ruled by the radical Islamic Taliban and Syria by the dictator Bashar al-Assad. Neither wants to negotiate the return of their citizens, so the German government is looking for detours via neighboring countries. Germany has not deported anyone to Afghanistan since the radical Islamist Taliban took power in Kabul in August 2021.