A member of parliament from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has proposed cutting off federal funding for regions who refuse to deport migrants.
MP Kai Wegner, who acts as Metropolitan Commissioner for the CDU and its sister party the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), wants to cut off federal funds to regions who don’t go ahead with deportations, reports die Welt.
The new proposed tactic comes after multiple reports of difficulties the German federal government has faced deporting failed asylum seekers and criminal migrants back to their countries of origin. One report released in August showed that in the first half of this year only 166 failed asylum seekers from North Africa had been returned to the region.
Under Mr. Wegner’s new plan the regions which carry out the most deportations would receive more federal funding and those who resist deportations would have much of that funding removed. “The federal government’s support to the regions must be designed in such a way as to promote deportation and the enforcement of the rule of law,” he told German press.
“Countries with higher deportation quotas should also proportionally receive more federal funds,” he said adding that it was only fair that those who “fail to comply with their duty to deport rejected asylum seekers” should not be rewarded.
The money saved, Wegner noted, could then be re-purposed to those with successful asylum claims and go toward aiding integration efforts. “The funds of the Confederation must benefit those who are actually vulnerable and promote their integration in a targeted manner,” he added.
The pressure to deal with failed asylum seekers and the rise of the anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has led Chancellor Merkel to admit that her migrant policy has been wrong and that there needs to be a push to increase deportations.
However, in the German capital of Berlin, left-wing parties were able to wrestle power away from Merkel’s CDU in this year’s local elections and have declared they won’t be seeking mandatory deportations, but rather encouraging voluntary ones instead.
The average cost to forcibly deport migrants in Germany can run as high as €50,000 per migrant. The federal government is still working with North African countries who refuse to accept many of their nationals back into the country. Many, like Egypt, are looking to the European Union for a similar deal to the EU-Turkey migrant deal in which the political bloc pays the countries money to take migrants back and stop the flow of new migrants.
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