Conservative anti-migration plans

In a motion submitted to the Bundestag on Wednesday, the Union called for at least 38 individual tightenings in asylum, migration and citizenship law alone: from the possibility of expatriation to an end to the “opportunity card” to the “complete exclusion of benefits” for those required to leave the country.

In the excitement over CDU leader Friedrich Merz breaking his word not to collaborate with the AfD, it was overlooked that the motion was rejected. Only a second, significantly slimmed-down CDU paper was adopted with the votes of the AfD and FDP, in which many elements of the other catalogue - including the possibility of denaturalization - are not included.

Nevertheless, Merz's action showed once again that there is nothing that conservatives expect more from than making life difficult for refugees and migrants. Whether few asylum seekers come or many, whether the number of applications increases or decreases, whether there is Islamist terror or not, whether they have the AfD breathing down their necks or even before it was created: the constant message is that there are too many refugees coming and that tougher measures need to be taken. This has been going on without ceasing for many years.

The empirical evidence does not change this: Between 2000 and 2012, there were an average of only 45,000 applications per year - and Union interior ministers such as Joachim Herrmann (Bavaria) and Uwe Schünemann (Lower Saxony) were constantly coming up with new, relevant ideas to combat the too many Roma, Lebanese and Kurds in the country. Although the population in Germany has grown since 2006, the number of recorded violent crimes in the country in 2023 was around 214,000, lower than 17 years previously.

The risk of becoming a victim of violence has therefore decreased - even if there was an increase in 2022 and 2023. But it is constantly said that security is in danger and that tightening of asylum laws is necessary. Since 2024, the number of asylum applications has also fallen considerably. But we constantly hear that Germany is "still too attractive". The labor shortage is exploding - the conservatives finally want to deport more people. Their belief in the political benefit of anti-refugee laws seems unshakable. They always want more of them, but it is never enough. A bottomless pit.

The changes to asylum law at the federal level have been recorded for 2015 to 2020. There were 77 changes, or on average one every four weeks. Most of them were tightenings. These included the ban on announcing deportation dates or the restriction of family reunification.

This does not include tightening measures at national and EU level or in other areas of migration law. In the years before and after, there were further significant tightening measures, including the expansion of "safe countries of origin", comprehensive internment options through the EU asylum system Geas, benefit cuts and new opportunities to prosecute sea rescue workers as human traffickers.

All of the tightening measures are intended to reduce the number of arrivals - primarily through deterrence. They are intended to keep the extreme right in check and thus secure the power of the conservatives to the right of centre. They are intended to curb general dissatisfaction and loss of trust in the state and its institutions, to prove their "ability to act". They are intended to help combat the housing shortage, investment backlog and social security deficits and to increase internal security.