Interior Minister Faeser wants members of criminal clans to be able to be expelled more easily – even if they have not been convicted. That’s how the Germans think about it.
It is a proposal that has met with widespread criticism from lawyers and politicians. Even the former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen (CDU), otherwise known for his right-wing conservative positions, went too far with Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s (SPD) idea, speaking of “family detention” that violated the constitution.
Now, however, it has become apparent that the vast majority of Germans support Faeser’s proposal to expel foreign members of criminal organizations and clans – regardless of whether they have committed a crime themselves. (Read more about her proposal here.)
According to a representative survey conducted by the opinion research institute Civey for t-online, 77 percent of Germans think the proposal is correct. In response to the question “How do you rate the proposal by Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser to allow the expulsion of foreign members of criminal organizations even without a criminal conviction?” 69 percent answered “correctly”, a further 8 percent of those surveyed answered “definitely correct”. Only 15 percent find the idea (clearly) wrong, 8 percent are undecided.
The current practice and legal situation is that foreigners – i.e. people without German citizenship – are threatened with expulsion as soon as they commit a criminal offense in Germany. Irrespective of the punishment, the police then creates a so-called danger forecast. This means that, based on the misconduct of an affected person, it is considered whether this poses a danger to the population or the state.
A judge then weighs up whether the person’s individual interest in staying in Germany is to be rated higher than that of the general public in an expulsion. If the latter predominates, for example because further criminal offenses are to be expected from the person concerned, expulsion is justified.
Deportation or expulsion?
In everyday use, these two terms are often confused because they sound similar. In fact, however, they mean different processes. At a expulsion the state withdraws a person’s right of residence and usually issues a re-entry ban. It is generally aimed at foreigners who have committed a crime. The deportation applies to refugees whose asylum application has been rejected and who therefore have to leave the country.
It is already the case that it is not only a crime that has been committed that has a negative effect on the assessment of the person, but also membership in a terrorist organization. Faeser now wants to extend this regulation from terrorist groups to groups of organized crime, possibly also to family clans who, for example, make themselves punishable with drug deals.
The idea drew criticism across the board. Not only Maassen considers the proposal to be unconstitutional, numerous other politicians and legal experts also see the rule of law in danger. Hubert Heinhold, a lawyer specializing in asylum and residence law, commented on Faeser’s discussion paper: “If the interest in deportation is developed so far, it would be an inadmissible, unconstitutional, human rights-based collective expansion.”
Criticism from the Greens and the CDU
The Greens are also very skeptical. It is “clear that regulations outside the rule of law are never up for debate for us Greens,” said the parliamentary director of the Greens parliamentary group, Irene Mihalic, the editorial network Germany earlier in the week. In the CDU, the Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Herbert Reul, accused Faeser of campaigning on federal political issues in Hesse, where she is running as the top candidate for the state elections on October 8th.
Meanwhile, support for the proposal from the home of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) came from the Association of German Criminal Investigators. “Every initiative that contributes to the fight against clan crime is to be welcomed in principle,” said Dirk Peglow, chairman of the editorial network Germany.
For the exclusive survey, Civey interviewed around 5,000 people from August 8th to 10th. The results are representative of the German population. The static error is 2.5 percent.
