Germany’s Homeland Ministry has said they agree with proposals from Jewish leaders to strip anti-Semitic migrants of their right to remain in the country.
Deputy Homeland Minister Stephan Mayer came out in support of the proposal, from the chairman of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, this Monday.
Formerly known as the Interior Ministry, newly renamed Homeland Ministry is run by the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling CDU party, the CSU, which has taken a harder line on immigration and called for migrant numbers to be capped.
Speaking to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Mr. Schuster said fines and reprimands were not enough to clamp down on migrant anti-Semitism and now arrivals who stood against Germany’s democratic values should be expelled.
“Those who knowingly and repeatedly violate our societal consensus should forfeit their right to stay,” he said, adding: “There are too many mosques in which hatred of Jews is preached.”
This week, the Homeland Ministry said it “emphatically supports” Mr. Schuster’s proposal.
Deputy Minister Stephan Mayer told Die Welt on Monday that “as a last resort, we should take away people’s right to stay in Germany if they have committed an offence motivated by anti-Semitism.”
He added: “Those people thereby oppose the core values and beliefs of our democratic system.”
The populist, nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party also welcomed the proposal, while the Social Democrats said the legal basis for Mr. Schuster’s proposal already exists in German law.
They were referring to what is known as the “law of residence” which makes way for migrants who have been convicted of a crime to be deported, as well as people that stand in the way of integration “in a reprehensible fashion”.
In January, CDU and CSU politicians prepared a new draft bill paving the way for the deportation of anti-Semites, stating that “absolute acceptance of Jewish life” is a “benchmark for successful integration” in Germany.
Rising levels of anti-Semitism in Germany have prompted the government to appoint a new special commissioner to tackle to issue, and newly-arrived migrants have been warned they must reject bigoted views.