The coalition government of the center-right Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), which is in power through May 2025, aims to significantly increase the number of people ordered to leave the country in what they are calling a “repatriation offensive.” However, political and media debate has focused on a different term: deportation.
The controversy over deportations to Syria, a country ravaged by a long civil war, shows how difficult the undertaking is – and how divergent opinions are even between the two conservative Christian parties. Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadeful (CDU) recently visited the country and later expressed caution: “At the moment only possible to a very limited extent,” was his assessment of the possibility of forced deportation.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has contradicted his foreign minister, saying: “The civil war in Syria is over. There are now no grounds for asylum in Germany, which means we can also start repatriations,” Merz said at a press conference on Monday. He added, “Those who refuse to return to the country may certainly be deported in the future.”
The interior minister is in talks with Syrian officials
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) has stressed that he wants to go ahead with deportations in principle. Due to the ongoing civil war in Syria, Germany has not sent anyone to Syria for the last 12 years.
In practice, deportation schemes often face obstacles due to complex legal frameworks. On Monday, the Berlin-based group Migration Media Service addressed the issue in its analysis:
The report states that the process is “governed by national residential and procedural law, national constitutional law, European directives and regulations and obligations under international law.”
Legal scholar Hannah Franz of the University of Hamburg contributed to the report. His analysis focuses on the federal government’s plan to increase detention centers for deportees and the number of beds there, as part of a promised repatriation campaign.
Additional housing is to be created in special detention centers or in separate areas designated to hold people awaiting deportation. At present there are about 800 such places across the country.
According to Franz, the number of detainees has been increasing for several years, reaching about 6,000 in 2024. At 90%, the majority of detainees are men. “Very few detention facilities have been set up to hold women,” says Franz, drawing attention to an unresolved problem of housing detainees awaiting deportation.
Are there too few places for detainees awaiting deportation?
The problem is that only ten of the 16 federal states have their own facilities to hold people awaiting deportation. This means they will have to adjust somewhere else. Engelhard Mazanke, director of the State Office for Immigration in Berlin, is constantly looking for a solution to this problem.
It also adds that deportations are impossible unless they are fought in court. This often includes cases in which the nationality of the person is not clear. If they can’t or won’t show a passport, it becomes difficult, as Mazanke has seen again and again in her more than 30 years working in migration.
“There are many states that are not ethnically homogeneous,” Mazanke explains. As an example, he cites the Kurds, who may originate from Türkiye but also from Iran or Syria. “This means that sometimes it is not at all clear which country a person comes from.” In such cases, it is helpful to have other points of reference to identify the person: this could be documents such as a military service card or a driver’s license, but also witness statements given during earlier proceedings.
“After all, you always need a country that declares its willingness to accept the person concerned,” Mazanke explains.
Deportation is only a last resort
From the perspective of the head of the Berlin immigration authority, the decisive factor is to encourage people to leave voluntarily rather than through forced deportation. Mazanke recalls that in 2019, a year before the coronavirus pandemic began, about 6,000 people who had no chance of obtaining a residence permit voluntarily left the German capital. However, in the same period, only 1,000 were deported.
In other words, the ratio between those who left Berlin voluntarily and those who were forced to return to their country of origin was six to one. Looking at data so far this year, Mazanke expects 15,000 voluntary returns and 1,700 deportations by 2025.
The Federal Government is also fully aware of what needs to be done in order for more and more people, who have no real prospects of staying in Germany, to leave Germany voluntarily. “We want to provide greater support for those who choose to return voluntarily by strengthening incentives and providing counselling,” the government’s coalition agreement said. It further states: “If this does not occur voluntarily, the State must enforce the obligation to leave.” This means forced exile.
This article was originally written in German.