Germany's Friedrich Merz calls for permanent border controls after knife attack
Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Friedrich Merz, currently leading in polls to become German chancellor, said Thursday if elected he will impose strict border controls.
Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union Party, cited a fatal knife attack by an Afghan asylum-seeker as evidence the immigration system has failed and all illegal migrant entries should be stopped.
"On the first day of my tenure as chancellor, I will instruct the interior ministry to impose permanent border controls with all our neighbors and refuse all attempts at illegal entry," Merz said in a speech Thursday.
He said even people seeking asylum would be barred from entering Germany.
His position is seen as an effort to take support away from the far-right Alternative for Germany Party, or AfD which has also attempted to link violent crime to immigration.
The Afghan man charged in a Wednesday stabbing attack on a group of kindergartners killed two people, including a 2-year-old boy, was due in court Thursday.
The Wednesday stabbing is the most recent in a series of violent, fatal assaults by suspects seeking asylum in Germany that occurred in Mannheim last May, Solingen in August and Magdeburg last month.
If elected, Merz plans to order the interior ministry to take permanent control of Germany's borders on his first day in office.
He described European Union asylum rules as "recognizably dysfunctional" and declared Germany should "exercise its right to the primacy of national law."
EU law allows temporary border controls to deter illegal immigration, but not permanent control measures.
If elected Merz and his center-right party would need to govern in a coalition with other parties. His plans on immigration would not likely be supported by left-leaning parties like the Free Democratic Party, Social Democrats or the Green Party.
It would be supported by the AfD, of course, but will the CDU have the courage to ask them? The rest of the Bundestag would go into hysterics preferring nothing be done to right the sinking ship.
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Eritrean asylum seekers trafficked, abused, extorted by network operating in Netherlands
A group of Eritrean human traffickers, who partly operated from the Netherlands, committed large-scale human trafficking, violence, and other atrocities against asylum seekers from Eritrea, according to a study by the National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking. Asylum seekers were locked up in warehouses, starved, extorted, beaten up, sold, or left behind in the desert to die, the investigation shows, NOS reports.
Rapporteur Conny Rijken based the investigation on 124 witness statements in an international criminal investigation by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) into this criminal organization. In almost all cases, the witnesses were Eritrean asylum seekers who paid smugglers to bring them to the Netherlands. Instead, they became victims of human trafficking in Libya.
The victims fled their country looking for prospects for the future, Rijken said. They mostly had to use smugglers because they did not have the documents needed to travel legally. The human traffickers took them to Libya, where they locked them up in warehouses with too many people in too small a space and with no sanitary facilities. The traffickers subjected the victims to physical and verbal violence, gave them little food and drink, and forced the victims to call family members to transfer more money.
“Some victims were beaten with garden hoses. These hoses were made wet, which is more painful. Some witnesses state that people were injured and left behind in the desert to die,” Rijken said. It is unknown how many people died.
Some victims had to perform work in the warehouses for the traffickers, ranging from preparing food to abusing other asylum seekers. Many were abducted or sold during their stay in Libya, sometimes multiple times, after which they had to pay again for their release.
The OM suspects seven men of operating this human trafficking network. The two main suspects ran reception camps in Libya - Walid, who is currently on trial in the Netherlands, and Kidane, who will soon be extradited by the United Arab Emirates, the OM told NOS. The other five are suspected of organizing extortion and money flows in the Netherlands. Many of the victims already had family in the Netherlands and the suspects visited them at home to extort money from them.
Dutch gov't offering Syrians €900 to return
to Damascus and not come back
The Dutch government is offering Syrians 900 euros in cash to voluntarily return to Damascus - almost double the maximum of 500 euros in cash typically given to asylum seekers upon voluntary departure. In return, the Syrians must sign a statement in which they withdraw their asylum application or return their temporary residency permit. Returning to the Netherlands is not possible after that, AD reports.
The Return and Departure Service (DTenV) told the newspaper that since the fall of the Assad regime, it has received “requests and telephone calls” from “Syrians who want to return to Syria.” During an intake interview, the service does warn of the risks of returning to Syria as it is not clear whether the country is safe. Declaring parts of Syria safe was one of the measures the Cabinet announced after giving up on declaring an asylum emergency, but it has not been implemented yet.
DTenV set up a special website for helping Syrians return to Syria. Surprisingly, the information on the site is only in Dutch. Though the video that Asylum Minister Marjolein Faber (PVV) posted on social media, announcing that the government will help Syrians return, was subtitled in Arabic and English. Earlier this month, she told RTL that the government plans to eventually force Syrian refugees to return.
The site stresses that it does not help with “family visits or to collect belongings,” only with “sustainable return.” Dutch officials will even help arrange the trip for Syrians living in the Netherlands, although the site does not make clear whether the Dutch government will also cover the costs of the trip.
Syrians can make use of this offer if they are still waiting for the outcome of their asylum application, have a temporary residence permit, or are living undocumented in the Netherlands. They must have a passport, valid or expired. Those who don’t can arrange travel documents through the Syrian embassy in Brussels. The DTenV can ensure that they “get permission to travel through Belgian territory if necessary.”
Asylum seekers who voluntarily return to their country of origin can always receive money to get through the first weeks. The “basic departure support” is 200 euros for an adult and 40 euros for a child. They can sometimes also apply for a “reintegration allowance” of up to 1,800 euros per adult, to help them set up a small business or get training for a job. Only 300 euros of that amount can be given in cash. That amounts to a maximum of 500 euros in cash per adult. Syrians can get almost double that amount.
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