AfD on migration and integration

The AfD rejects the United Nations migration pact because, in its view, it strengthens the rights of illegal migrants and imposes duties on host countries. Instead it calls for a European pact that makes it possible to return everyone who entered illegally.

The AfD opposes the United Nations migration pact. It wants a different agreement in Europe. That agreement should make all illegal migrants go back. The AfD calls this remigration.

The proposed pact includes removing obstacles to deportation and concluding return agreements with third countries. Asylum centers would also be set up outside Europe. Prospects would be created in migrants' home countries to make voluntary return easier. In the preface, the lead candidate also announces border protection, benefits in kind only for asylum seekers, and a remigration program.

The AfD wants to replace the individually enforceable right to asylum with an institutional guarantee and to end family reunification for refugees entirely. It cites abuse of asylum law and exhausted reception capacity in Brandenburg.

The AfD wants to change asylum law. Today a person can go to court to claim asylum. That should no longer be possible. Refugees should not be allowed to bring their families. Only people who prove who they are should be able to apply for asylum.

The AfD rejects any form of family reunification for refugees, including through minors sent ahead. Recognized asylum seekers who travel to the country they fled are to be turned back at the border on return. An asylum application would only be possible with proven identity and nationality; where there are reasonable doubts about age, examinations would be mandatory, and false statements would be severely punished. Aid for people in need is to be provided in the crisis regions themselves. The AfD wants to recruit skilled workers mainly from the domestic population, for example through training.

The AfD wants to replace cash benefits for asylum seekers entirely with benefits in kind and to stop social benefits for people obliged to leave. It also wants a high tax on money transfers to countries outside Europe. In the party's view, this would remove incentives to immigrate into the welfare system.

Asylum seekers should no longer get cash. They should get things like food and clothing instead. People who must leave the country should get no welfare benefits. People who send money abroad should pay a high tax on it. The AfD says fewer people will then come for the money.

Following the Austrian model, benefits could also be tied to willingness to integrate, such as good language skills and a clean criminal record. Recognition as an asylum beneficiary should no longer give immediate and unlimited access to all welfare benefits. The AfD wants to build on the payment card. Through the Bundesrat, Brandenburg is to push for the complete abolition of the Analogleistungen (higher, welfare-level benefits) that asylum seekers receive after 36 months. Remittances leaving the European Economic Area are to be heavily taxed.

The AfD calls for permanent securing and control of the border to prevent unauthorized entry into Brandenburg. Anyone caught crossing the border illegally is to be refused entry; those picked up inside the country are to be detained immediately.

The AfD wants to control the border all the time. People who cross without permission should not be allowed in. Fences on the border with Poland are also possible. People in the country without permission should be detained. Commuters and vacationers should still be able to cross easily.

A modern security concept is to be drawn up for the border along the Oder river, which may include fences on the border with Poland. Commuter, vacation and goods traffic should remain possible without unreasonable restrictions. People without residence rights picked up inside the country are to be detained and deported once the formalities are settled. Cash, cards and valuables are to be confiscated and returned only after deportation, minus the costs of accommodation, care and return. Cell phones are to be seized and analyzed to identify smugglers and routes.

The AfD wants asylum procedure counseling to be provided only by state bodies and to cut funding for independent organizations that hinder deportations. People who help create obstacles to deportation are to be punished. The party argues these organizations have a financial interest in high refugee numbers.

Today, associations often advise asylum seekers. The AfD wants only the state to give this advice. Associations should get no public money if they get in the way of deportations. People who stop a deportation should be punished.

The program groups providers, welfare associations and NGOs under the term "asylum industry" and accuses them of turning return counseling into advice on how to stay. Integration projects are to undergo state evaluation of their results. Organizations that help rejected asylum seekers evade the duty to leave would lose public funding. The state would stop paying for legal advice for applicants whose rejection is final. Citizens who help create obstacles to deportation are to be punished; people who went into hiding are to be deported when found and should not be able to obtain permanent residence.

The AfD wants towns and municipalities to decide for themselves how many asylum seekers they take in. Residents are to be informed early and have a say; accommodation is to be concentrated in a few central facilities.

Towns should decide for themselves how many asylum seekers they take in. People living nearby should be told early. They should have a say. Asylum seekers should live in a few large shelters.

The program cites sharply increased costs as the reason. When new shelters are planned, residents are to be informed early and fully and involved in the planning. The AfD rejects an asylum policy made without involving the population.

The AfD sees integration as an obligation of immigrants and demands acceptance of local rules, traditions and values as well as German language skills. It wants to prevent parallel societies from forming in Brandenburg and to counter what it sees as growing Islamization.

The AfD says immigrants must make the effort to integrate. They must learn German. They should accept the rules and values of the country. Migrants should get no advantages through quotas. The AfD does not want closed-off groups in the state. It wants to limit the influence of Islam.

Language learning is to be supported up to level B2. The AfD rejects quotas in favor of migrants and lower requirements for training or hiring in the public sector. As signs of Islamization, the program lists religious dress rules, leaving certain foods off menus in public institutions, fundamentalist mosques, religious circumcision of newborns and ritual slaughter. Muslim-dominated parallel societies, which the program sees in western German cities and Berlin, are not to take root in Brandenburg.

The AfD wants to remove birthright citizenship from nationality law and return to citizenship by descent. There would no longer be any entitlement to naturalization, and the requirements would rise considerably.

Today, children of foreigners can become German if they are born in Germany. The AfD wants to end that. Only people with German parents should be German by birth. Becoming a citizen should get much harder. Nobody should have a right to it anymore.

The legal situation from before the year 2000 is to apply again, under which citizenship is passed on through the parents. For discretionary naturalization by the authorities, requirements are to increase considerably, especially the required length of residence. According to the program, naturalization should be experienced as the result of one's own effort.

The AfD announces an extensive deportation program to run until 2029. First, false statements made in order to immigrate are to be uncovered statewide; then everyone obliged to leave is to be returned on a large scale. The party sees asylum as a temporary right.

The AfD wants to deport many people by 2029. First it wants to look for false statements by immigrants. Then everyone who must leave should go. Criminals should be deported first. Brandenburg should get a detention center for deportations. Asylum should only last for a limited time.

Age claims of unaccompanied minor refugees since 2015 are to be rechecked through mandatory medical examinations, as are trips home by people seeking protection; in cases of abuse, residence is to end. Those obliged to leave who have committed crimes or shown extremist behavior come first, and dangerous individuals and offenders are to be deported without exception, including to Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria. Violent asylum seekers are to be housed in separate facilities away from towns. The state is to quickly set up a deportation detention facility and, among other things, buy back the Frankfurt (Oder) prison for this. Grounds for asylum are to be reviewed regularly for ten years, with permanent residence possible only afterwards. Voluntary return is to be promoted more, including through basic vocational training.