"Didn't even bother with the repatriation": Criticism of Hendrik Wüst is growing in the migration debate

Neue Zürcher Zeitung Germany "Didn't even bother with the repatriation": Criticism of Hendrik Wüst is growing in the migration debate Article by Alexander Kissler, Berlin • 4 hours • 4 minutes reading time Hendrik Wüst speaks at the special session of the state parliament on the topic "United in grief and determined for freedom". Almost at the same time on Friday evening, as Solingen residents remembered the victims of the fatal knife attack a week ago at their town festival, a woman stabbed passengers on a bus in Siegen, 70 kilometers away. They were on their way to the town festival. A 32-year-old suspect was arrested. There were six injured, no deaths. The police assure that the woman is a German citizen with no migration background. There is no indication of a terrorist motive. Nevertheless, the terrible incident is contributing to the growing debate in North Rhine-Westphalia about how safe life in the most populous federal state still is. A 43 percent increase in knife attacks in public spaces within a year had just been recorded. Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst and Integration Minister Josefine Paul are at the center of the current criticism. Wüst appeals to his own government The Christian Democrat, who has been residing in the Düsseldorf State Chancellery since 2021 as Armin Laschet's successor, spoke at a special session of the state parliament on Friday. Wüst condemned the "barbaric, inhuman terror" in Solingen and called for the causes to be tackled together at their roots. The federal government must act and "finally find effective solutions" to the "issue of irregular migration." In the municipalities, the "threshold of being overwhelmed" when it comes to accepting migrants has been exceeded in many cases. Ultimately, Wüst's most urgent appeal was also directed at his own state government: "We must ensure that the law and order are consistently implemented." The federal states are responsible for carrying out deportations. North Rhine-Westphalia failed to deport the Syrian, who was required to leave the country, even though Bulgaria was prepared to take him in. In this respect, Wüst also bears the responsibility that the opposition parties SPD and AfD reminded him of. Wüst's lame statement that there had been "obvious failings" in the transfer of the later assassin to Bulgaria was not enough for them. For the SPD, parliamentary group leader Jochen Ott declared that the "deportation management of this government" was dysfunctional. The parliamentarian from Cologne turned to Wüst personally twice: "You were not in a position to enforce the law." And: "Isn't it the case that you have not taken care of the repatriation at all in the past two years?" The SPD criticizes the "organizational chaos" If the allegations are taken seriously, the three dead in Solingen could still be alive if Wüst had stuck to his own guidelines. Instead, the black-green coalition made a U-turn on asylum policy. In their coalition agreement in June 2022, both parties committed themselves to prioritizing "quick, decentralized accommodation of refugees in the 5,959 municipalities." This is precisely what makes the municipalities reach the "threshold of being overwhelmed" complained of by Wüst more quickly. At the same time, deportations are made more difficult if asylum migrants only live in the "state's central accommodation facilities" for a short time. In a motion for a resolution rejected by the black-green majority in the Düsseldorf state parliament, the SPD complains of "organizational failure and enforcement deficits in North Rhine-Westphalia" and states: "Unlike in the vast majority of other federal states, NRW has divided responsibility for repatriation and security between two ministries" - Herbert Reul's Ministry of the Interior and Josefine Paul's Ministry for Children, Youth, Family, Equality, Refugees and Integration. In order to resolve the "organizational chaos," the SPD wants to return responsibility for immigration law and return management to the Ministry of the Interior. The AfD supports the demand. Their parliamentary group leader Martin Vincentz addressed the government directly in the state parliament: "You did not deport the perpetrator, you did not arrest him and you did not put him out for arrest. You preferred to set up reporting points for non-criminal discrimination rather than for IS flags, so that the later perpetrator was able to move around Germany completely freely and fully cared for and ultimately murder." North Rhine-Westphalia is becoming increasingly unsafe. Josefine Paul entered the state parliament in 2010 as a queer activist. The minister made headlines in 2022 when she set up four reporting points for incidents "even below the criminal limit" in order to better document "group-related misanthropy". Now she says that the attack in Solingen has "painfully revealed where there are gaps in our country's security policy architecture, where we can no longer understand the radicalization of people and where there are also gaps in questions of deportation and return law that require a thorough and rapid answer." The Chancellor wants a task force However, the responsibilities have been clarified legally. There have been problems with implementation. So when Paul promises to "turn over every stone to further improve the systems in our state's responsibility," she has to put up with Ott's question as to why the system has not worked so far. The measures that Paul announced show the long road to behavior that is required by the rule of law. From now on, the immigration authorities will have "access to the presence and absence recording systems in the state institutions." This is intended to make the obvious possible. Before arresting a person who is required to leave the country, it should be possible to check whether the person sought is actually at the location. Secondly, Paul instructed "the heads of the central accommodation facilities to immediately inform the central immigration authorities if a person who could not be found during a previous transfer measure is back in the facility." The Syrian was not deported because the officials did not make a second attempt to get hold of him after an unsuccessful attempt. Paul, who does not want to see any personal responsibility, appeals: "Let us not allow the terrorist act to change the way we live together." This appeal could also have come from Olaf Scholz, who spoke out in the "Spiegel" on Saturday. The Chancellor praises his own actions in migration policy and speaks out against terrorists who want to "spoil our way of life." The state must "provide security so that we can continue to celebrate without worry." The package of measures on which the government has agreed is intended to expand the "catalogue of crimes" "that exclude someone from being granted asylum here". There will also soon be a "task force made up of scientists and authorities" to prevent Islamism.