AfD deportation plans: deportation flights remain empty

T he AfD in Saxony-Anhalt has won. The party, which is partly classified as right-wing extremist, has been explaining in detail for months what will happen if it actually governs. Top candidate Ulrich Siegmund wants to “deport until the runway glows”. In order to initiate this “deportation offensive”, the AfD wants to allocate 100 million euros to the state budget according to its election program. The aim is to increase the number of deportation detention places tenfold and to charter deportation flights. Legally, this is conceivable - but the seats on the planes will remain almost empty.

is a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Anthropological Research and a lecturer in migration law at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

In Saxony-Anhalt, around 4,700 people are required to leave the country. However, the vast majority of these people cannot be deported. Around 80 percent of the people required to leave the country are tolerated, so deportation is impossible. All of these people are in education, mothers and fathers of small children, or are so seriously ill that deportation would have irreversible consequences for their health. Those seeking protection who do not have a passport are also regularly tolerated.

In contrast to what the AfD suggests, politicians are not trying to provide any “incentives”, but rather the countries of origin of the people without a passport are simply refusing to accept them. An AfD state government cannot change any of this. These toleration situations arise from federal law. There are only a few people left who are obliged to leave the country and are not tolerated.

After the elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, there is a threat of an AfD government for the first time. The taz reports what is at stake - and who is now defending democracy. All texts about the series can be found here.

The 100 million euros are intended for them. The sum is not the price that would be necessary to deport refugees. The 100 million euros are the price necessary to turn their deportations into a message. With new deportation detention centers, a specially chartered “deportation airline” or a possible state-owned deportation police, violent images can be created that serve as evidence of the promised harshness in asylum policy. The state elections on Sunday with the high result for the AfD bitterly confirmed this.