Following the attack in Solingen, the German government has promised to step up deportations of illegal immigrants. Chancellor Olaf Scholz made the pledge during a visit to the city where the mass stabbing claimed by the Islamic State took place on Friday evening (August 23), killing three people and wounding nine others.
The assailant later turned himself in to the police, he is a 26-year-old Syrian, Issa al H., born in the city of Deir al-Sor and arrived in Germany at the end of December 2022, where he applied for political asylum and received the so-called subsidiary protection, which refugees from countries devastated by civil war often receive. But his application was later rejected and the man should have been expelled, which never happened.
The commitment
“We will have to do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and do not have permission to stay in Germany are repatriated and expelled,” Scholz told reporters in the western city, after laying a flower at the crime scene. The German chancellor called the attack an act of “terrorism against all of us,” saying he was “angry at the Islamists who threaten the peaceful coexistence of all of us.”
Scholz also promised to tighten gun laws “very quickly” and “do everything” to “expel those who cannot and should not remain in Germany,” at a time when the tragedy has reignited debate over the country’s immigration policy.
AfD rides the attack
The attack has fueled political tensions over asylum and deportation rules ahead of three state elections next month. The Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for the attack during a celebration marking Solingen’s 650th anniversary.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which advocates a crackdown on immigration, is leading in polls in Saxony and Thuringia, where state elections are set for Sunday, and in Brandenburg, which has its own elections on September 22. The AfD has exploited the attack in its election campaign, with the party’s leading candidate in Thuringia, Bjoern Hoecke, pitching voters the slogan “Hoecke or Solingen.”
Scholz under pressure
The attack puts pressure on Scholz at a time when his Social Democrats, along with their coalition partners the Greens and the Free Democrats, weakened by months of bickering, are falling in the polls. The chancellor claimed that deportations have risen by about two-thirds compared to 2021 levels. “But that is no reason to sit back and relax,” he said, saying the government was exploring 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, but the deportation failed because he was not in his refugee accommodation when authorities attempted to carry out the measure. A government spokesman said the deportation plan had “failed in practice” rather than on any legal basis.
