Germany tightens border controls after stabbing

After a knife attack in the city of Solingen in August in which three people died, Germany wants to expand its border controls.

Since the stabbing, the government has been under pressure to crack down on immigration. The suspect is a Syrian citizen who was facing deportation after his asylum application was rejected.

The terrorist militia “Islamic State” has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The new controls, which will be introduced on September 16 and will initially last for six months, were announced a few days after the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party made major gains in local elections.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stressed that the government was pursuing a “hard line” against illegal immigration and that the controls would curb Islamist extremism and cross-border crime.

“We are doing everything in our power to protect the people of our country from these threats,” she added.

Germany is already carrying out checks on its eastern and southern borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Austria, mainly random checks on roads and trains. Similar measures are to be introduced at all border crossings.

Critics, however, say the move is more about politics than security.

The AfD's performance in the state elections in eastern Germany caused turmoil for Germany's established parties: for the first time since the Nazi era, a right-wing extremist party was at the top of a poll.

The governing SPD and other established parties seem to have understood the result as a message from voters to take a tougher stance on immigration and border issues.

In recent years, the various Berlin governments have allowed a relatively large number of asylum seekers to enter the country.

Germany took in over a million people during the 2015-2016 refugee crisis, mostly fleeing war in countries like Syria, and has taken in 1.2 million Ukrainians since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.

But while polls suggest the AfD could do well in Brandenburg's state elections this weekend, both center-left and center-right parties are putting forward proposals that would have been unthinkable until recently.

The CDU – the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel – has proposed turning back all asylum seekers at the border, even those who meet the requirements, on the grounds that they have travelled through other safe EU countries.

Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told the Bild newspaper on Monday that his country would not accept any migrants rejected by Germany.

“There is no room for maneuver,” he said.

Since the knife attack in Solingen, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government has announced a series of measures on migration.

These include changing the rules so that asylum seekers facing deportation lose their benefits and resuming the deportation of convicted Afghan criminals to their home country for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.