AfD on migration and integration

The AfD wants to grant people facing political persecution and war refugees only temporary protection. Anyone who commits a crime would have to leave the country immediately. Skilled workers could immigrate according to the state's own needs, but should primarily be trained at home.

Persecuted people and war refugees should get protection. But the protection should last only for a limited time. Anyone who commits a crime should have to leave right away. Skilled workers should mostly come from within the country.

The platform distinguishes between people who are genuinely persecuted or fleeing war and other immigrants. Only the first group would receive protection, and only temporarily. Under the party's plan, committing a crime means losing the right to stay. The AfD does not see immigration as a solution to the skilled-labor shortage, arguing such workers are needed in their home countries. The education system is therefore to be reshaped to focus on knowledge and basic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic.

The AfD wants to use the Bundesrat to push for much tougher checks at Germany's borders. Anyone who enters without permission and, in the party's view, has no right to file an asylum claim should be turned back without exception. The platform frames this as a return to applying existing law.

The AfD wants more checks at Germany's borders. Some people enter without permission. The AfD says many of them may not ask for asylum. These people should always be turned back at the border. The AfD wants to push for this in the Bundesrat. That is the chamber of the German states.

The platform cites Federal Police figures for 2016: of 280,000 people who entered without authorization, only 905 were entitled to apply for asylum because only they had not come through a safe third country or safe country of origin. In the AfD's view, the remaining roughly 279,000 should have been refused entry. An AfD-led state government would therefore launch a Bundesrat initiative. The stated aim is to end what the party calls an ongoing breach of law and to restore Germans' trust in the rule of law.

An AfD state government would refuse to take in people in Saxony-Anhalt who entered without authorization via a safe third country or whose identity is unclear. The state would also withdraw from voluntary admission programs and decline to accept Afghan local staff. The platform argues these people have no entitlement and that capacity is exhausted.

The AfD does not want Saxony-Anhalt to take in certain people. This applies to people who came without permission through a safe country. It also applies to people whose identity is unclear. The state should leave voluntary admission programs. It should also not take in Afghans who once worked for German agencies.

The platform cites Article 16a(2) of the Basic Law and Section 18(2) no. 1 of the Asylum Act: anyone arriving through a safe third country has no claim to admission, housing, or food. The AfD assumes the same for people who do not actively help establish their identity. Participation in resettlement programs run by supranational organizations would be terminated or refused. An AfD government would also decline to accept Afghan local staff and their families brought to Germany by the federal government.

The AfD wants to end church asylum in Saxony-Anhalt, arguing that it violates existing law and blocks deportations. The people concerned would be deported as quickly as possible. The party also wants to have criminal proceedings and financial liability for church congregations examined.

Some churches shelter people who have to leave Germany. This is called church asylum. The AfD wants to end it in Saxony-Anhalt. People in church asylum should be deported quickly. The AfD wants to check if churches are breaking criminal law. It also wants to check if churches must pay the costs.

According to the platform, churches in the state granted church asylum in 81 cases in 2024 and 61 cases in the first half of 2025; it says 48 planned deportations failed because of it in 2024. The AfD argues the practice is meant to let deadlines expire and thus prevent deportation for good. Working with immigration and police authorities, an AfD government would deport everyone concerned. Each case would be reviewed for initial suspicion of incitement or aiding unlawful residence. Where deadlines lapse, the government would examine whether congregations can be made to bear the resulting costs permanently.

The AfD wants to use the Bundesrat to abolish the constitutional right to asylum and replace it with a discretionary grant by the state. The state would decide according to its own political interest who receives asylum.

Today the right to asylum is in Germany's constitution. The AfD wants to remove this right. Instead, the state should decide freely who gets asylum. Nobody would have a fixed claim to it. The AfD wants to achieve this through the Bundesrat.

The platform notes that CDU politicians such as Thorsten Frei and Michael Stübgen, as well as Hans-Eckhard Sommer, head of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, have made the same demand. The AfD accuses the CDU of not following through on such announcements after elections. An AfD-led state government would therefore introduce its own Bundesrat initiative. The enforceable individual right would be replaced by asylum granted at political discretion.

The AfD wants refugees to find shelter in countries neighboring their homeland rather than travel on to Germany. Aid would be provided only there, with the federal government giving the UN refugee agency sufficient funds. The platform considers this more sensible economically and socially than admitting people.

The AfD wants to help refugees only near their home countries. They should find shelter in neighboring countries. They should not come to Germany. The federal government should give money to the UN refugee agency for this. The AfD thinks this is better and cheaper.

As an example, the platform names Syrians, whose flight in the AfD's view ends in Turkey or Lebanon. The party regards onward travel to Germany not as flight but as a route into the German welfare state. An AfD state government would advocate this approach in the Bundesrat. Money for housing and food in crisis regions would go from the federal budget to the UNHCR. The party rejects permanently settling people from other cultures and supporting them with tax money.

The AfD wants stops at three levels: municipalities could obtain a ban on refugees moving in upon request, and the state would stop admitting anyone in an emergency. At the federal level, the party wants an admission stop for non-EU nationals until further notice. The platform justifies this with exhausted capacity.

The AfD says towns and cities cannot take in more people. Towns should be able to ask for a ban on refugees moving in. In an emergency, the whole state should take in nobody. The AfD also wants a stop for all of Germany. It would apply to people from countries outside the EU.

The platform points to cities such as Cottbus, Freiberg, Pirmasens, and Salzgitter that obtained a negative residence requirement under Section 12a of the Residence Act; an AfD government would review such requests from Saxony-Anhalt municipalities and grant them if justified. For the state, the party invokes an emergency reservation in asylum law and lists overburdened agencies, full shelters, missing daycare places, and troubled schools as warning signs. It cites North Rhine-Westphalia's 2016 admission stop for Moroccan asylum seekers as a model. For selected non-EU countries, a complete immigration stop would also apply, with entry allowed only on visas for temporary stays such as tourism.

The AfD wants to equip all registration offices with document-checking devices and verify every passport presented by asylum applicants. For unaccompanied minor foreigners, age would be determined through mandatory medical examinations. The party says this would uncover deception it considers widespread.

The AfD wants to always check if asylum seekers' passports are real. All registration offices should get devices for this. Some young people say they are under 18. Doctors should examine how old they are. This exam should be required.

The authenticity checks would also cover foreign EU identity documents, and passports not yet checked would have to be presented again once the devices are purchased. Forgeries and related fraud would be punished. For age assessment, the platform names dental examinations and X-rays of the wrist and collarbone. The AfD points to 40 million euros budgeted for this group in the 2025/2026 two-year budget. Anyone proven to have given a false age would face consequences for their residence status.

The AfD wants to house asylum seekers in central group facilities rather than in apartments. The sites should not be in city centers, in order to avoid conflict. The party sees asylum as temporary hospitality that ends with a return home.

The AfD wants asylum seekers to live in large shared facilities. They should not live in separate apartments. The facilities should not be in city centers. The AfD says asylum is only for a limited time. After that, people should go back to their home country.

In choosing sites, the well-being of the local population is to be given particular weight. According to the platform, locations should avoid conflict in the interest of both neighbors and residents. In the AfD's view, an asylum process starts with the application and ends with the return home. If an application is rejected or the reason for fleeing no longer exists, departure should follow immediately.

The AfD wants cash, credit cards and other assets carried by asylum seekers to be recorded and confiscated on arrival. The money would help pay for housing and food. The platform justifies this as a way to save taxpayer money.

The AfD wants to take cash and valuables from asylum seekers when they arrive. The state would use this to pay for housing and food. Later, officials would check their assets again. The AfD says this saves tax money.

An AfD-led state government would have cash, credit cards and assets carried by asylum seekers identified and confiscated. After the asylum application is filed, an additional asset check is planned. Any assets found would, as far as possible, go toward the cost of providing for the applicant. The stated aim is to prevent what the platform calls a waste of taxpayer money.

The AfD wants to require asylum seekers in the state's initial reception centers to do community work. Benefits would be provided in kind rather than in cash, and money transfers abroad would be blocked. The platform says this would remove financial incentives for immigration.

The AfD wants to make asylum seekers do community work. For example, they would clean their shelters. They would get goods instead of cash. They would not be able to send money abroad.

The platform points out that the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act allows mandatory community work and benefit cuts for those who refuse. An implementation plan would be drawn up together with counties, cities and towns. It would examine in particular whether asylum seekers can take on janitorial and cleaning tasks in their shelters. In addition, benefits would consistently be given in kind. Beyond the payment card, the AfD wants to look into further ways of stopping transfers abroad.

The AfD wants the protection status of all refugees in Saxony-Anhalt reviewed every year and revoked when conditions in the home country improve. Those who travel to their home country, commit crimes or are classed as security threats would lose their status. Through the Bundesrat, subsidiary protection for war and civil war refugees would be abolished altogether.

The AfD wants to check refugees' protection every year. If the home country gets safer, protection should end. People who travel to their home country should lose protection. So should criminals. The AfD wants to fully end the protection status for war refugees.

According to the platform, the yearly review is meant to lay the groundwork for returns. For trips to the home country, such as Syria, Afghanistan or Ukraine, immediate loss of status would become the norm. For criminals and people classed as security threats, revocation is meant to allow fast deportation. Subsidiary protection is a status for people facing serious harm at home who are not recognized as refugees. The platform argues it has not proven its worth and is barely required by international law, and announces a Bundesrat initiative.

The AfD wants to end state spending on organizations and projects in the field of asylum and integration and stop funding a culture of welcome. The money saved would go to the native population. The platform regards current integration policy as bound to fail.

The AfD wants to stop state money for integration projects. Projects for a welcoming culture would end too. The money would go to local people instead. The AfD says integration policy does not work.

As examples, the platform cites 275 million euros for reception and housing in 2025 and 2026 and 11 million euros for counseling, support and integration. It says about 4.9 million euros were budgeted from 2023 to 2026 to promote a local culture of welcome and recognition. The AfD also rejects so-called Welcome Centers. Instead it calls for a "farewell culture" for illegal immigrants and more recognition for German parents and children.

The AfD wants to prevent people from other EU countries from moving to Saxony-Anhalt because of social benefits. Those affected would be pushed to return to the EU country they came from. In the platform's view, the German welfare state attracts this immigration and causes conflicts.

Some poor people from EU countries move to Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD says they come for welfare benefits. The AfD wants to stop this. These people should go back to the EU country they came from.

The platform speaks of a "welfare state magnet" that draws immigrants from other EU countries. It says the state has so far failed to solve the related problems. An AfD-led government would use every legal means available for this purpose. Another goal is for those affected to return to the EU country from which they entered.

The AfD wants naturalization in Saxony-Anhalt handled as strictly as possible and permanently denied to criminals. In the Bundesrat it wants to roll back the previous federal coalition's naturalization reform and replace citizenship by place of birth with citizenship by descent. Serious criminals with dual citizenship would normally lose their German one.

The AfD wants to make it harder to become German. Criminals should never get a German passport. Children of foreigners born in Germany would no longer become German by birth. Serious criminals with two passports would lose the German one.

Authorities would use their discretion as restrictively as possible when applicants, in the AfD's view, cannot show enough integration or assimilation. So-called fast-track naturalization would end immediately. Instead of citizenship through birth in Germany, the descent principle in force until 2000 would return. For stripping citizenship from serious criminals with dual nationality, the platform cites Article 16 of the Basic Law and the 2019 rule on terrorist fighters abroad. Denaturalization is meant to allow fast deportation.

The AfD rejects integrating illegal immigrants into the labor market and recruiting skilled workers from other cultural backgrounds. Shortages would instead be addressed through mechanization, digitalization and artificial intelligence, and in the long run through more births and less emigration. In the platform's view, immigration worsens the skills shortage and carries security risks.

The AfD does not want to recruit skilled workers from foreign cultures. It does not want to bring illegal immigrants into jobs. Machines, computers and AI should replace missing workers. AI means artificial intelligence. The AfD also wants more children to be born.

The platform argues that immigrants increase demand for childcare workers, teachers, administrative staff, courts and police. It says recruited workers often lack sufficient German and have training below German standards, and it also points to the 2024 Magdeburg attack. It calls recruiting from developing and emerging countries ethically indefensible. A state strategy is planned with a campaign aimed at small and mid-sized businesses and free advice on planning, financing and implementing mechanization, digitalization and AI.

The AfD wants a state program to bring back German skilled workers who have moved abroad. It would offer help finding housing and daycare, plus a bonus payment. Skilled workers from other German states are also meant to move to Saxony-Anhalt.

Many German skilled workers live abroad. The AfD wants to bring them back. The state would help them find a home and daycare. People who return and work for two years get money.

The program lists three incentives: help with finding housing, help with finding a daycare spot, and a return bonus. The bonus would be paid only after the person has settled and held a job with social insurance contributions for two years. As justification, the AfD points to three million Germans who emigrated between 1991 and 2015 and to 270,000 highly qualified emigrants in 2024. It cites Japan as a model. Returnees and people moving from other states already know the language and culture, the program says, so no integration costs would arise.

The AfD wants to deport far more people from Saxony-Anhalt who are required to leave, and to spend 100 million euros on it. The state would organize its own deportation flights, set up a "Task Force Abschiebungen" (deportation task force), and push local immigration offices toward a stricter course.

The AfD wants to deport many more people. These are people who must leave Germany. The state would organize its own flights for this. A new working group would speed up deportations. Criminals would be deported especially fast.

The AfD points to 654 deportations and 1,252 failed attempts in 2024, and to 100 million euros its parliamentary group set aside in its alternative budget for 2025/2026. Cases with low obstacles would come first, and criminals and people classed as security threats would be deported especially quickly. Many more flights would leave from Halle/Leipzig airport, including joint group flights with Saxony and other states. A task force made up of the interior and justice ministers, police, and municipal associations would speed up procedures and work with the federal-state return support center (ZUR). Staff at local immigration offices would be encouraged to use their discretion in line with a "farewell culture."

The AfD wants to withdraw public funding from institutions, initiatives, and associations that help rejected asylum seekers avoid deportation. Individuals who actively help would face strict punishment.

Some groups help people who are about to be deported. The AfD wants to stop giving these groups state money. People who actively block a deportation would be punished.

The measure would affect publicly funded institutions, initiatives, and associations that support rejected asylum seekers in evading deportation. The AfD wants to take away their funding. People who actively help those required to leave to thwart their deportation should, in the party's view, be prosecuted with the full strictness of existing law.

The AfD wants to use every legally available form of deportation detention and sharply increase the number of detention places in the state. To do so, it would temporarily suspend the separation of prison and deportation detention and look into converting the Stendal reception center.

The AfD wants to detain more people before they are deported. The state needs more detention places for this. The reception center in Stendal might become a deportation detention center. Regular prisons would also be used for a time.

The forms to be used include detention to secure deportation, transfer detention under the Dublin rules, pre-departure custody, detention to enforce cooperation, preparatory detention, and administrative custody. The AfD considers the facility under construction in Volkstedt inadequate, with 30 places and an opening date of 2027. It therefore wants to work through the Bundesrat so that deportation detainees in Saxony-Anhalt may temporarily be held in regular prisons. The central reception center in Stendal would become a deportation detention facility if a review is positive, and could take detainees from other states when places are free. As cheaper alternatives, the AfD wants to examine house arrest in central accommodation and electronic ankle monitors.

The AfD wants to set up a staff office for remigration and appoint a remigration commissioner. Money now earmarked for integration guides would instead pay for remigration guides.

The AfD wants a new office for remigration. For the AfD, remigration means people going back to their home country. The money for integration guides would end. Instead there would be remigration guides.

The program uses remigration to mean three things: bringing back German skilled workers who emigrated, forcibly deporting people required to leave, and voluntary return programs for people the AfD regards as illegal immigrants. The staff office and the commissioner would coordinate these three areas. The 1.2 million euros set aside for integration guides in the 2025/2026 two-year budget would instead fund remigration guides.

The AfD wants to use the Bundesrat to make German development aid depend on whether a country takes back its citizens. The initiative would also push for stricter controls at the EU's and Germany's borders.

Germany pays development aid to other countries. The AfD wants to attach a condition. Countries that take back their citizens would get more money. Countries that do not would get less.

The plan is a bonus-penalty system: countries highly willing to take people back get more aid, and those less willing get less. The AfD notes that experts discuss such approaches under the term conditionality, meaning the pursuit of migration goals through trade or investment. The Bundesrat initiative would also press for effective controls at the EU's external borders and at Germany's borders. The party's aim is to stop deported people from re-entering.

The AfD wants authorities in Saxony-Anhalt to make full use of every existing option to cut benefits for people required to leave. The aim is to raise the pressure on them to leave Germany.

Some people must leave Germany. The AfD wants to give them less money and help. The law already allows such cuts today. All offices in the state would use them. That way, more people would leave.

This mainly concerns the restrictions under Section 1(4) and Section 1a of the Asylbewerberleistungsgesetz (Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act). The AfD cites the social welfare office in Dessau-Roßlau as a model: it withdraws or reduces benefits in so-called Dublin cases, where another EU country is responsible for the person. Medical services are also restricted there, and the office urges those affected to leave. The party wants this approach applied across the whole state.

The AfD wants Ukrainians to stop receiving Bürgergeld (citizen's income) and instead get the lower benefits paid to asylum seekers. It also wants to prepare the return of Ukrainians living in Saxony-Anhalt and to stop recognizing them across the board as war refugees.

Ukrainians in Germany get Bürgergeld, a basic income benefit. The AfD wants to change that. Ukrainians would only get the benefits for asylum seekers. That is less money. The AfD also wants to prepare their return to Ukraine.

Through the Bundesrat, the AfD wants all Ukrainians who arrived since the war began to fall under the Asylum Seekers' Benefits Act. The lower payments are meant to save taxpayer money and act as an incentive to return. The AfD argues that, in its view, large parts of Ukraine are safe and fighting is limited to the east. It cites a 2025 European Commission plan that, it says, calls on member states to prepare for returns and set up voluntary return programs. The state would prepare a "remigration drive" for Ukrainians living there, and the party rejects automatic recognition as war refugees.

The AfD wants to create a state-run program that encourages migrants without legal residence to leave voluntarily. The aim is a sharp rise in the number of such departures. Municipalities would get support for their own return initiatives.

The AfD wants a return program for Saxony-Anhalt. It should get people without legal residence to leave on their own. Many more people should leave this way. Towns and cities should also get help with this.

The platform points to existing federal return programs and to Bavaria, which pays people returning to Africa 250 euros a month for one year. According to the platform, 601 people left Saxony-Anhalt voluntarily in 2024, 214 of them through federal programs. The state program is meant to offer those affected a way to avoid deportation. Municipalities would be advised on their own incentives, in cash or in other forms. The AfD also wants more public recognition for staff at immigration offices and deportation detention facilities. The party describes its remigration policy as lawful.

The AfD wants to raise the bar for naturalization: an essay would replace the current multiple-choice test, and a new declaration would require a commitment to Germany. In addition, waiting periods for naturalization would depend on a person's own integration efforts rather than length of residence alone.

The AfD wants to make it harder to become a citizen. People should write an essay instead of taking a multiple-choice test. The essay also tests language skills. New citizens should commit to Germany. People who integrate well should become citizens faster. Others have to wait longer.

The essay on a political topic would have to show language skills equal to at least a passing grade at the level of a basic secondary school certificate (Hauptschulabschluss), plus respect for the state and the will to become a citizen. The personal declaration used in the state since a 2021 decree would be rewritten: it covers recognizing the constitutional order, respecting German culture, not actively supporting foreign conflicts, and striving to earn one's own living. In the Bundesrat, the AfD wants waiting periods to shorten or lengthen depending on integration. Involvement in clubs and associations would allow faster naturalization.

The AfD wants to make courses on German history and culture mandatory for all foreigners who are lawfully and permanently resident. Anyone absent without excuse could, in the most serious case, lose their residence permit. The platform considers the current courses too narrowly focused on the constitution.

The AfD wants required courses for foreigners. The courses should teach German history and culture. All foreigners who live here legally and long-term must take part. People who miss class without a reason should face penalties. They can even lose their right to stay.

According to the platform, the current courses run by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees teach only basic civic knowledge and constitutional values. It argues that successful naturalization also requires historical and cultural education. The AfD therefore wants to push for more broadly designed courses. The attendance requirement would apply to foreigners not yet naturalized who are staying in the country lawfully and not just temporarily.

The AfD wants to push at the federal level for foreigners to be expelled as a rule once sentenced to at least one year in prison. Foreigners deemed prone to violence would be monitored as a priority, deported and detained until then; at least 300 deportation detention places would be created.

The AfD wants to expel foreigners sentenced to at least one year in prison. For this, federal law would have to change. Foreigners who are ready to use violence should be watched closely. They should stay in detention until they are deported. The state should create 300 places for deportation detention.

The platform announces a federal initiative that would also allow re-entry bans, and cites a 29.6 percent share of non-German suspects in 2024. Referring to the attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market on December 20, 2024, the AfD criticizes that warnings about the perpetrator were not pulled together. Monitoring of violence-prone foreigners should therefore be the top priority for security agencies. Instead of the 30 deportation detention places the state government plans at Volkstedt prison by 2027, the AfD wants at least 300.

The AfD wants Saxony-Anhalt itself to sign agreements with countries of origin so that they take back citizens who are required to leave Germany. According to the platform, deportations of rejected asylum seekers currently fail partly because those countries do not cooperate.

Some people are not allowed to stay in Germany. The AfD wants them to leave. Saxony-Anhalt should sign its own agreements with other countries. Those countries should take their citizens back.

The agreements would be signed with all third countries the AfD considers relevant and would be binding and verifiable. As the legal basis, the platform cites the states' responsibility for deportations together with the Lindau Agreement of 1957, which governs the role of the states in international treaties. In the AfD's view, countries that want good relations should take their citizens back.

The AfD wants naturalizations to be handled by a central state agency rather than by the immigration offices of municipalities and counties. The aim is for the same standard to apply everywhere in the state.

Today, local offices in cities and counties decide on naturalization. Naturalization means a person becomes a German citizen. The AfD wants just one office for the whole state. That way the same rules should apply everywhere.

Responsibility currently lies with local immigration offices. The platform would transfer this task to a single body at state level. The goal is a uniform decision-making practice across Saxony-Anhalt.

The AfD wants to end irregular immigration to Saxony-Anhalt and not admit people as "climate refugees." It adds an ecological argument: those who come to Germany raise their standard of living and with it their use of resources.

The AfD does not want to take in people who flee because of the climate. It wants to end immigration without permission to Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD also gives a reason from environmental protection. It says these people use more resources in Germany than before.

The platform disputes that many migrants are fleeing the effects of climate change and claims they mostly come for welfare benefits. The AfD names identity, security and public finances as reasons for its opposition and adds the ecological footprint as a further one. It describes itself as a party that cares about nature and homeland. A state government under its leadership would end the immigration that the platform describes as illegal and culturally foreign.

The AfD wants to prevent more migrants from being placed in rural municipalities as part of decentralized accommodation. Instead, they are to be housed as far as possible in a small number of central reception facilities in the state.

The AfD wants no new housing for asylum seekers in villages. Municipalities should not be assigned fixed numbers of migrants. Migrants should live in a few large facilities in the state.

In the program's view, the limit for taking in migrants has already been exceeded in mid-sized towns, which is why migrants are increasingly to be distributed to remote rural areas. The AfD rejects new asylum centers in municipalities and allocation quotas. It wants to use every legal means to achieve this. The program also criticizes that municipalities have to bear the costs of immigration through their social spending.