Comment after attack in Munich: The asylum system is at its end

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Comment after attack in Munich: The asylum system is at its end Jochen Buchsteiner • 12 hours • 2 minutes reading time A car is lifted onto a tow truck at the scene after a vehicle drove into a group of people in Munich. After every attack by a rejected asylum seeker, the attempt to identify a specific failure can be seen. Sometimes an authority did not deport someone quickly enough, sometimes an office forwarded information about danger to the wrong place. Sometimes a police station did not secure the market place sufficiently, sometimes there was a lack of psychosocial support. What these explanations have in common is that they are intended to give the impression that only certain corrections are needed in an otherwise functioning system. The truth is something else: the system itself is overwhelmed. Around three million asylum seekers have come to Germany in the past ten years. Many have integrated well and are enriching the economy and society. Many, too many, do not do this. One part even poses a security risk, and one part of three million is a significant number. The Minister of Health recently estimated that almost one in three "refugees" suffers from psychological problems. This creates a mixed situation that no system can control. If there is to be any hope of at least partially controlling the imported risk, then only when the influx subsides. Vague claims leave people confused This is precisely what the asylum policy debate of these weeks is about, which has left many voters confused with its vague claims and technical terms. Essentially, two views are competing against each other: the Union and the FDP - like the AfD before them - have come to the conclusion that effective immediate measures must now be taken to curb migration. Behind the demand for a "de facto entry ban" or a "comprehensive rejection at the borders" lies the plan to also prevent asylum seekers from entering the country. The Greens and Social Democrats are rejecting the approach, arguing that it contradicts European law. But if you look at the statements and activities of the past few years, you will see that the two parties have so far fundamentally rejected a "limitation" of migration - they even deleted the term from the Residence Act in 2023. At the end of the election campaign, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Green candidate Robert Habeck are trying to portray their asylum policy as comparatively bold. They point out that almost a third fewer asylum applications were submitted last year than in 2023. It is difficult to say whether this is due to the measures that the traffic light coalition took hesitantly and mostly under public pressure. What is certain is that even 250,000 new asylum seekers - that's how many there were last year - will not reduce the challenges. Of course, limiting the influx offers no guarantee that acts like those in Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg and now Munich will not occur in the future. But without a limit, the list of horrors will most likely grow longer. If the next government fails to change course, voters' desire for a change in migration policy is likely to outweigh their fear of bringing the AfD on board.