Millions of Germans fear deportations

After the radical right-wing meeting in Potsdam in late November, plans for mass deportations are causing great fear. So says an ARD survey.

In 2022, some 23.8 million people from foreign backgrounds lived in Germany. This corresponds to 28.7 percent of the population. Almost half of them have German citizenship, about twelve million people. Most of them were born in Germany.

At the meeting held in Potsdam in late November, attended by politicians from the right-wing Alternative party for Germany ( AfD) and members of the centre-right Christiandemocrat Union (CDU) have been talked about the expulsion of <x1m> million people”. At this meeting, as he discovered and published in January, the Corrective investigative network was discussed plans to expel a large number of citizens of foreign origin, whether they have a German passport or not. German citizens of foreign origin would be expelled if they were not assimilated, as stated.

“contrary to Constitution”

But German citizenship is specifically protected by the German Constitution. Article 16 says: “German citizenship cannot be removed”. This provision was also introduced into the Constitution because of the Nazi practice of forced deportation and removal of citizenship, especially of citizens of Jewish origin.

“This protection applies to dual citizenship person”, points out in an interview for ARD, the lawyer specialising for constitutional law, Ulrich Carpenstein, deputy chairman of Germany's Chamber of Lawyers.

Although the Constitution allows for certain exemptions for citizens with dual citizenship, it offers very little opportunity to abolish citizenship, for example in cases of terrorist activities. Even if new options could be added that could lead to the removal of citizenship, they should not be related to skin color, as discussed at the Potsdam meeting.

“also, possible reasons for lifting citizenship should not be linked either to origin or to the concept of assimilation”, Karpenstein explains. These plans are unequivocally unconstitutional. To achieve such ideas, you must ignore both the German Constitution and the international human rights conventions.” And that would only be possible in the case of a coup.

Fear of Citizens

But despite that, the <x0 plan of mass deportation” discussed in Potsdam, frightens many Germans. In a poll conducted by the dimap Infrates Institute for ARD, 51 percent of those surveyed with immigrant backgrounds said that their plans caused them great or great fear. 48 percent of those surveyed without foreign roots likewise view the matter.

In the West, fear is slightly higher (49 percent say that fear is greater or greater) than in the Orient (42 percent). Big differences in age groups don't. In people between 35 and 49, fear is slightly lower and is 41 percent. Fear is particularly pronounced in Green and SPD supporters, with 69 and 61 percent. Only eight percent of AfD supporters fear such expulsions, while 76 percent have responded to little or no fear.

AfD design

AfD was distanced from the meeting in Potsdam and claims it was a “private collection”. The party recently explained in an official document that its concept of the so-called <x2himgration” includes all measures and incentives for constitutional and legally harmonised return of foreigners forced to leave Germany in their countries of origin. “We firmly reject unconstitutional demands like (...) the deportations of German citizens of migrainen descent. ”

Does this mean that AfD refuses to expel the Germans, means German citizens? On January 10, 2024, shortly after “Corrective” published the contents of the Potsdam meeting, something else could be read in a post on the X network. The AfD called for removing obstacles in the process of revocation of German citizenship and explained that they not only want to expel foreigners consistently, “but want to remove passports (German) to criminals, terrorists and rapists, as well as those considered a potential threat to society”. The automatic “System under which criminals are not deported because they have German citizenship must be abolished”, said the party deputy chairman Alice Weidel's quote.

Legally Unfounded

This at least suggests that the goal of the AfD is in some cases to get the passport of Germans of migrainen descent. Under current legal regulations, such deportations are not possible. Constitutional lawyers like Ulrich Carpenstein view the change as unconstitutional to Article 16 of the Constitution.

In an interview with the ARD, AfD's Bundestag member René Springer explained: “as alternative to Germany, we clearly support the Constitution, but that doesn't mean that we will not tighten laws where necessary when we take responsibility and be in government.” This tribulation will be located in the German Bundestag: “We will have to negotiate what is tolerant for us and what is no longer acceptable. And where obstacles should be lowered on the road to lifting citizenship”, he said.

For AfD, German citizens of foreign origin are foreigners

An impression of what is “tolerable” for AfD was given by a local gathering of this party in Gera, Tourism, in December. There a visitor asked the AfD chairman for this land, Björn Höcke, what is happening to millions of people he still considers foreign, but who have long German passport and German citizenship?

During that evening, Höcke said among other things “we would be able to live with 20, 30 percent fewer people in Germany with no problem, in fact I think this makes ecological sense”. With those words, he also explained the percentage of people of migrainen descent in Germany ʹ 28.7 percent, including those with a German passport. Asked by the ARD to explain this statement, Höcke said he was misunderstood and added: “This number is the result of the demographic disaster in which Germany is located”. / DW