Germany said on Friday, July 18, that it had deported 81 Afghan men convicted of crimes to their Taliban-controlled homeland, as Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government looks to signal a hard line on immigration. The interior ministry said a plane carrying the men took off Friday morning bound for Afghanistan, adding that all the deportees were under deportation orders and were convicted by the criminal justice system. Berlin has had only indirect contact with the Taliban authorities through third parties, and Friday's operation was executed with the help of Qatar, according to the German interior ministry.
The government of Europe's top economy was forging ahead with a "policy change," said Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, who was hosting several European counterparts for a migration meeting. "Deportations to Afghanistan must continue to be carried out safely in the future. There is no right of residence for serious criminals in our country."
Germany's new government, a coalition between the CDU/CSU and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), has promised to expel more foreign criminals alongside a crackdown on irregular migration. As well as carrying out deportations to Afghanistan, Dobrindt has said he was in contact with authorities to enable deportations to Syria, which have been suspended since 2012.
Germany had stopped deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul following the Taliban's return to power in 2021. However, deportations resumed last year, for the first time since the Taliban came to power, when the previous government, led by Social Democrat chancellor Olaf Scholz expelled a group of 28 Afghans who had been convicted of crimes.
The United Nations insisted that no one should be sent back to Afghanistan, in reponse to Germany's deportation order. "UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk calls for an immediate halt to the forcible return of all Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers, particularly those at risk of persecution, arbitrary detention or torture upon their return," spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
Additionally, the human rights group Amnesty International strongly criticized the renewed deportations to Afghanistan saying the situation in the country was "catastrophic." "Extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and torture are commonplace," the group said in a statement.
At the beginning of the month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, accusing them of crimes against humanity over the persecution of women and girls.
Merz told a press conference on Friday that Germany wants to be an "attractive country for immigration," to attract the best talent and fill gaping labour shortages. The previous government's policies had however left local administrations with too large a burden to carry, Merz said.
His government had "initiated corrections" to put migration policy on the right course, he said, including tightening border controls and limiting family reunifications rights for some refugees. Merz said that policing Germany's borders with its neighbours was only a "temporary" solution and a durable solution was needed at the European level.
Dobrindt was meeting his French, Polish, Austrian, Danish and Czech counterparts, as well as European Commissioner for Home Affairs Magnus Brunner, in southern Germany on Friday. The objective of the meeting is to "strengthen European migration policy," Dobrindt told the daily newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine.
A debate over resuming deportations has flared as migration has risen up the political agenda in tandem with the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The AfD scored a historic election result of over 20% in February – its highest score at the national level – leaving the party nipping on the heels of Merz's conservative CDU/CSU bloc.
The controversy over immigration was fuelled by a series of deady attacks last year in which the suspects were asylum seekers – including several from Afghanistan.