Rejected migrants enter Germany despite the decisions
Despite the tightening of border controls in Germany and the new government measures announced by Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, cases of refugees entering the country continue. In two notable incidents, the German federal police allowed refugees who had previously been denied entry to cross.
The first case concerns a Ukrainian who was denied entry at the border with Austria in Freilassing, who filed a legal appeal before the administrative court in Munich. The second case involved an Algerian citizen who was rejected at the border with France and then went to the administrative court in Karlsruhe. Following these lawsuits, the federal police retracted and canceled the bans, allowing them to enter legally. The relevant courts confirmed that the police suspended the enforcement of their decisions before any ruling was issued.
So far, it is impossible to predict the impact of these developments on judicial matters, but urgent review requests seem to have lost their justification after the police allowed the complainants to enter, which is considered a legal victory for them. Karl Kopp, director of the Pro Asyl organization, stated that the police and the Ministry of the Interior tried to avoid a resounding legal defeat. He pointed out that there is increasing pressure on the policy of returning asylum seekers, especially after the administrative court decision in Berlin that deemed the return of three refugees to Poland illegal.
The court confirmed that the deportation was not an isolated case, but revealed deeper legal concerns that could threaten the government's entire approach. Kopp commented, "The elephant in the room is that the deportation of asylum seekers is illegal." The federal police refused to disclose the reasons for their reversal of decisions, but legal expert Konstantin Hroshka from the Evangelical University described the deportation processes as illegal and involving serious legal risks for the police. In the rejected Ukrainian case, it appears that the issue goes beyond the deportation itself, as the Bavarian judiciary announced in March that border control in Bavaria is illegal, which could have broader political implications, especially since conditions have not changed since 2022 according to Hroshka.
In a third incident, the police stopped a Turkish citizen at the Belgian border in early June, but he is now in Germany despite increased surveillance, reflecting the fragility of oversight, especially with nearly 7,000 new asylum applications submitted in June alone. Although the federal police and Dobrinth currently do not face immediate risks of judicial defeats, deep doubts remain about the legality of returning asylum seekers and the fate of the new immigration policy, which is open to all possibilities.