Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has sharply rejected the Union’s demands for higher hurdles for naturalization and accused her of a “populist overbid competition”.
“‘The Union is apparently relying on populism and ignoring the facts,’ Faeser told the Rhineland Post (Tuesday’s edition). ‘We have made the preconditions for the German passport much stricter with our reform of the state citizenship law than before,’ the SPD politician said. ‘Now, there are clear red lines: no German passport for criminals, none for anti-Semites, none for people who do not clearly stand by the free democratic basic order, none for men who disregard the equality of women, and none for people who cannot take care of themselves and their family, said Faeser.
“‘At all these points, we have made the state citizenship law stricter than it was under the long-term union-led federal governments. It’s not about revoking citizenship, which, according to our constitution and European law, is subject to high hurdles. It’s about making sure that foreign criminals don’t even become German citizens in the first place. That’s what we’ve done.'”
The same applies to the deportation and expulsion of criminals. “We have changed the laws so that criminals can be deported faster and more consistently” Faeser added. Deportation detention and exit custody have been extended. Most recently, the security package has been set up to ensure that perpetrators who commit crimes with knives can be deported consistently. ‘We have also regulated that racist, anti-Semitic, or homophobic crimes often lead to deportation. This must be consistently implemented,’ Faeser said.
“‘Germany has deported over 20% more people in 2024 than in the previous year. We have deported serious offenders back to Afghanistan for the first time and will continue to do so. This shows that action counts, a populist overbid competition helps no one,’ Faeser added.’