By Sebastian Kunigkeit, dpa
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is urging the regional governments in the German states to take stronger action to ensure the deportation of individuals who are legally required to leave the country.
Her call comes after a deadly knife attack in the western city of Solingen.
In an interview published on Tuesday by the Funke Media Group newspapers, Faeser stated: “We have already created comprehensive new legal bases for more repatriations so that those obliged to leave cannot evade deportation.
“The key to success is above all that the new powers and regulations are also implemented locally in the states.”
She added that the states have “every support from the government.”
The interior minister, a Social Democrat from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party, made the comments in the wake of a deadly knife attack in Solingen. Three people were killed and eight other seriously wounded during a city festival on Friday evening.
The suspected perpetrator – a 26-year-old Syrian man who has been remanded in custody – was supposed to have been deported to Bulgaria last year after his request for asylum in Germany had been rejected.
The attack in the state of North Rhine Westphalia sent shock waves across the country and has reignited the debate on migration policy and deportations.
On Saturday, the terrorist group Islamic State claimed the attacker had acted on its behalf.
At the beginning of the year, the lower house of Germany’s parliament, or Bundestag, passed stricter laws to make deportations easier. Among the changes, the maximum legal duration for detention pending deportation was extended from 10 to 28 days.
Authorities in shared accommodation centres are now also permitted to enter rooms beyond just the individual’s designated room to enforce deportation orders.
Faeser said that new laws have greatly speeded up the deportation of dangerous individuals, particularly from Islamist groups, by giving authorities more tools to prevent them from evading deportation.
The legal changes are already having an impact, she said: The number of deportations has increased by approximately 20% compared to the previous year.
According to the Interior Ministry, there were 11,102 deportations from January to July, up from 9,185 during the same period last year
