Thematic focus: The new aliens’ police

New old aliens’ police – an introduction
by Heiner Busch

The foreigner and asylum law was always also security law. But fuelled by absurd threat scenarios the law has been massively tightened by the German coalition government since autumn 2015.

Police failure on the New Year’s Eve in Cologne
by Norbert Pütter

900 sexual offences have been committed at the turn of the year 2015/16 in public areas in German cities according to the Federal Criminal Police Office. More than one half of these acts happened at the Cologne central railway station. The assaults in Cologne became synonymous with the obvious failure of the police as well as with the projection surface of any type.

Expulsion – reloaded
by Anja Lederer

Only a short time after it had become public that plenty of sexual offences were committed mainly by refugees in the New Year’s Eve 2015/16 at the Cologne central railway station, German politicians started calling for the tightening of the law on expulsion. The first legal amendment was adopted by the German Bundestag on 11 March 2016, a second amendment followed on 7 July.

The police and the reception of refugees
by Christian Schröder

In face of the high numbers of arriving refugees and the chaotic situation in supply and accommodation both the Federal Police and the state police forces have taken over actual tasks of the asylum and welfare authorities. Therefore, the reception of refugees is also shaped by the logic of policing.

Refugees as bulk data
by Dirk Burczyk

In face of the steep increase of arrivals of asylum seekers law-and-order politicians complained that a regular registration procedure ceased to exist and public security is at risk. The new Data Exchange Improvement Act aims both to optimise the administration of refugees and to secure the control of police and intelligence services.

The Bavarian centers for arrival and return
by Stephan Dünnwald

The promise of the centres for arrival and return (ARE) in Manching and Bamberg is to accelerate the asylum procedure. Following the Swiss model, the presence of all responsible authorities on the spot is said to warrant a seamless cooperation of different stakeholders. However, these special camps are not characterised by speedy procedures. Rather they stand for the pressure to return, resulting from isolation, shabbiness and the lack of support.

Enforcement phantasies – deportations in Germany
by Maximilian Pichl

The calls for more speedy deportations are very loud at the moment. A look at the current figures unveils that the diagnosis of an “enforcement gap” is untenable. In fact, the deportations from Germany are increasing continuously since 2013 and have reached a peak level meanwhile.

Private security services in refugee shelters
by Katharina Müller and Christian Schröder

The conditions in refugee shelters operated by private companies and controlled by private security guards are bad. The abuse case of asylum seekers in the refugee shelter in Burbach made clear that the uncontrolled use of security staff is a massive problem.

Snitches against unwanted migration
by Matthias Monroy

The Federal Police is using secret informers for quite some time. Now they can also deploy covert investigators. The provision to do so is part of the new Act for an Improved Information Exchange to Combat International Terrorism which was adopted by the German Bundestag on 24 June 2016 with majority vote of the Grand Coalition.

Europe in the second year of the “refugee crisis”
by Heiner Busch

The crisis of EU migration management is not over despite the closure of the Balkan route and the deal with Turkey. Thousands of migrants are stranded in Greece under awkward conditions, and also the way out of Italy is barred. Nonetheless the EU wilfully adheres to the Dublin system and attempts to upgrade Frontex to seal the external borders.

Non-thematic contributions

The Federal Constitutional Court’s decision on the Federal Criminal Police Office Act
by Fredrik Roggan

On 20 April 2016, the Federal Constitutional Court decided that most of the counterterrorism powers of the Federal Criminal Police Office that had been adopted in late 2008 are unconstitutional.

Deadly police shots in 2015
by Otto Diederichs

For 2015, the statistics of the German Police University count 41 cases of police shootings at persons and 17 shootings at objects. Ten persons have been killed, 22 wounded.

Berlin-Friedrichshain: Averting dangers in campaigning times
by Louisa Zech and Tom Jennissen

When large numbers of police stormed the building at the Rigaer Street 94 in Berlin-Friedrichshain and occupied the stairs and the attic in the morning of 22 June 2016 the inhabitants were not really surprised. The building and the northern area of Friedrichshain are targets of disputable police operations for a while.