Brandenburg’s deportation practice is being tightened. Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD), Interior Minister Michael Stübgen and the district administrators and mayors of the Mark agreed on this with concrete resolutions at a conference in Potsdam on Friday. Woidke had invited people to the conference in the State Chancellery to take precautions in Brandenburg after the Solingen attack. “We owe this to the people of Brandenburg. But we also owe it to the new Brandenburgers,” said Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) at a press conference afterwards.
Since the date fell in the middle of the heated election campaign phase two and a half weeks before the state election, there had been a huge row about the date in the Kenyan government made up of the SPD, CDU and Greens. Green Integration Minister Ursula Nonnemacher refused to take part, confirmed Woidke. “Ostrich politics does not help, especially not when it comes to migration.”
Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) recently did not rule out in the state parliament that cases like the one in Solingen could happen in the Mark, where a 26-year-old Syrian killed three people and injured eight others, some of them critically, at a folk festival. The man should have left Germany long ago, had gone into hiding, but had continued to collect social benefits.
This is exactly what will be ruled out in Brandenburg in the future following the agreement. Refugees who are to be deported and go into hiding will be immediately put on the wanted list without exception. “In addition, they lose their entitlement to financial benefits.” Until now, the practice has varied from district to district. In addition, asylum seekers who are subject to deportation must report to authorities regularly, once a month. Anyone who does not comply can expect to have their benefits reduced. Both sides agree that deportation centers should be set up in the state, which Stübgen has been preparing for some time. As reported, the Ministry of the Interior is planning one together with the district on an island on the Oder near Küstrin. Video surveillance at folk festivals is also supported.
There is also agreement, above all, that border controls at the German border and thus also in Brandenburg should be continued and that the federal government should be called upon to “suspend the Dublin III Regulation in order to preserve and expand decision-making control at the borders.” And: “Asylum seekers who enter from safe third countries must be able to be turned away by the federal police at the border.” In addition, options for repatriation to Syria, Afghanistan and Russia are also being called for.
All of this largely corresponds to the demands made by the Union under Friedrich Merz to the federal government before the migration summit next week. At the end, Woidke appeared before the press together with Stübgen and Justice Minister Susanne Hoffmann (both CDU). CDU party leader Jan Redmann had previously accused Woidke of abusing the district administrators’ conference “as an election campaign show”.
Oliver Hermann, mayor of Wittenberge and president of the Association of Towns and Municipalities, rejected such criticism of the Woidke invitation: “We as towns and municipalities expect this. It would be fatal to wait until a new government is in place.” Herrmann stressed that it was not about those who abide by the rules, but about criminals, about offenders. Siegurd Heinze, CDU district administrator of Elbe-Elster and chairman of the regional district council, expressed similar views. There must be a turnaround on asylum, but not an end to asylum, said Heinze. “It was important to reach this agreement before the state election.”
According to the current Infratest survey by RBB published the day before, migration and refugee policy are the top issues that are most important to people in Brandenburg.
