Germany’s Scholz promises more deportations after visiting stabbing scene

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to step up deportations on Monday during a visit to Solingen, where a deadly Daesh-linked mass stabbing has emboldened the far-right opposition and fueled criticism of his government’s handling of immigration.

“We should do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and are not allowed to stay in Germany are repatriated and deported,” Scholz told reporters in the western city, where he laid a flower at the scene of the crime.

“This was terrorism, terrorism against all of us,” he added.

The attack, in which a 26-year-old suspected Daesh member from Syria is accused of killing three people, has fueled political tensions over asylum and deportation rules ahead of three state elections next month.

The group claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place on Friday night during a festival celebrating Solingen’s 650-year history. Along with the three dead, eight were injured, some seriously.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which campaigns to crack down on immigration, leads polls in Saxony and Thuringia, where state elections are scheduled for Sunday, and Brandenburg, which has elections on the 22nd September.

The AfD has seized the offensive in its election campaign, with the party’s leading Thuringian candidate, Bjoern Hoecke, offering voters the choice of “Hoecke or Solingen”.

Pollsters Stefan Merz of Infratest dimap and Manfred Guellner of Forsa said Reuters the attack was unlikely to translate into more votes for the far-right party because its supporters were already mobilized over immigration issues.

Infratest dimap’s Merz mentioned the possibility that the center-right CDU would benefit at the expense of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats.

Wrongful expulsion

The attack puts pressure on Solz as his Social Democrats, along with their coalition partners the Greens and Free Democrats, bruised by months of infighting, trail in the polls.

In a sign of tougher rhetoric, Scholz promised in October 2023 to increase “grand style” deportations — a promise he repeated after visiting the scene of the Solingen attack.

Again in June, Scholz said he would take a tougher stance on deportation after an Afghan man stabbed a police officer, who later died of his wounds, during an attack on a right-wing demonstration in the city of Mannheim.

Scholz said on Monday deportations were up by about two-thirds compared to 2021 levels. “But that’s no reason to sit back and relax,” he added, saying the government was looking at legal and practical ways to boost the numbers. .

Authorities had planned to deport the suspect in Friday’s attack to Bulgaria last year under European Union asylum rules, according to German media. The deportation was unsuccessful because the man was not at his refugee accommodation when authorities tried to implement the measure, the reports said.

A government spokesman said the deportation plan had “failed in practice” rather than on any legal basis.