Germany introduces draft bill to step up deportations | DW News

The increasing number of migrants and refugees and the low number of deportations has become a major political issue in Germany, with the right-wing populists capitalizing on the anti-immigrant sentiment. Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a tougher asylum policy in a major interview with Germany’s Spiegel magazine, in which he promised, “We must finally deport on a large scale those who have no right to stay in Germany.” He called it unacceptable that deportation procedures often drag on for years. Now, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, a Social Democrat like the chancellor, wants to follow through on the pledge and has presented a bill that has been approved by the federal cabinet. She told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that the reform of deportation procedures was only one step in a series of migration policies. “We are ensuring that people without the right to stay have to leave our country more quickly. In this way, we are strengthening society’s support for the reception of refugees in Germany,” she said. She said the restrictive measures ensuring more and faster repatriations were necessary so Germany could fulfill its humanitarian responsibility for those needing protection from war and terror. “To protect the fundamental right to asylum, we must significantly limit irregular migration,” Faeser said.