In a historic policy shift, Germany’s new Merz-led government has effectively abolished open-border asylum entry by ordering immediate pushbacks of all illegal migrants at its national borders, ending nearly a decade of de facto mass migration policies that critics say have destabilized Europe.
Anyone seeking asylum must now apply in the first E.U. country they enter, in many cases, Greece. If they do not, they are to be turned back or deported.
3,000 additional officers will be sent to patrol and police Germany’s borders as well.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) issued the sweeping directive at midday Tuesday, authorizing German Federal Police to tighten border controls and escalate pushbacks for any non-citizen attempting to enter the country without valid documentation, even those requesting asylum.
Dobrint was quoted as saying they want to ‘send a signal’ to the world that the open borders policies of the past no longer apply to Germany.
Friedrich Merz, the newly installed Chancellor and longtime leader of Germany’s center-right CDU, has positioned himself as a course-correcting alternative to the Merkel era, pledging to restore order, enforce national sovereignty, and reclaim conservative voters disillusioned by years of open-border policies and technocratic globalism.
The German government has been trying to stop the rise of the “Alternatives for Germany” party, which the government labels as ‘far-right’ but which has opposed the country’s suicidal open borders policies.
AfD has quickly become Germany’s most popular and powerful party, and deep state elites in the German government have tried to shut it down with a variety of illegal tactics.
German elites were paralyzed with fear that AfD was going to win enough votes to take control.
Germany’s population of 84.7 million include 13.1 million foreign-born, of whom nearly 3.5 million were considered refugees. 42% of individuals under the age of 15 in Germany were either foreign-born or had at least one foreign-born parent, according to 2022 government data.
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has surged in recent years by capitalizing on widespread frustration over uncontrolled migration, crime, inflation, and a political class seen as aloof and unaccountable. Once dismissed as a fringe movement, the AfD now polls in second place nationally and holds governing power in multiple localities, with its strongest support concentrated in the former East Germany. The party’s relentless focus on immigration, national identity, and EU overreach has made it the primary vehicle for dissent against the Merkel-era policies, forcing establishment parties like the CDU to adopt tougher rhetoric and policy shifts, such as the recent border pushback directive, as a defensive maneuver.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently denounced the surveillance and tyranny used to suppress the AfD party. In response, German leftists said Rubio was acting like Hitler.
This change on German immigration revokes a controversial 2015 order from former Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU), which instructed German authorities to admit all undocumented third-country nationals who requested asylum, regardless of their legal status or point of EU entry. That decade-old verbal order became the legal foundation for Germany’s open-border policy under former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
AfD, by contrast, had campaigned on mass deportations.
Tensions over immigration, often encouraged by far-left non-profits and open borders supporters, has led to major political tensions in the United States, the United Kingdom, and across the western world.
Crime by refugees and foreign-born immigrants was a common flash point, as well as the escalating social benefit cost to house, clothe, feed, and educate the foreigners.
Again a Syrian “refugee” (came to Germany in 2016, never worked a day) knife killed another man in Berlin.
Every day. Every fucking day. https://t.co/bw6yyDfnMc pic.twitter.com/3foAwAZXjR
— Kaiser (@eagleeye2805) April 17, 2025
President Trump is widely credited with his stunning 2024 victory because of his strong and principled stance against illegal immigration.
Dobrindt’s reversal, which takes immediate effect, restores enforcement of the long-ignored “Dublin Regulation,” which is a European Union policy stating that asylum seekers must apply for protection in the first EU country they enter. Merkel famously discarded this rule at the height of the 2015 migrant crisis to ease pressure on countries like Greece and Italy, a move that many say triggered an unprecedented wave of uncontrolled migration into Germany.
According to BILD, more than 3 million migrants have crossed into Germany since the policy began, many of whom destroyed their identity documents to avoid deportation, taking full advantage of generous German welfare systems while bypassing asylum eligibility rules.
“From today, ALL migrants will be prevented from crossing Germany’s land borders illegally, even if they claim asylum,” BILD reported, marking what could be the most significant immigration policy rollback in modern German history.
The political consequences are just as explosive. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party CSU have hemorrhaged support in recent years to the populist-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a party that surged in popularity by slamming Merkel’s migration policies and demanding border controls. Insiders suggest the new directive is a last-ditch effort to recapture voters defecting to the AfD, now polling at record highs in multiple German states.
CDU parliamentary leader Jens Spahn confirmed that the pushbacks will go forward even if neighboring countries object. Under EU treaties, countries like Austria are obligated to accept rejected migrants if Germany refuses them entry. Though Austria has already issued a sharp rebuke, German leaders are reportedly undeterred.
Legal experts note that unless reversed by EU courts, the German government is within its rights to reassert its border authority. If Germany remains firm, observers expect a domino effect, with other EU countries following suit potentially restoring the long-collapsed security framework at Europe’s external borders.
That, however, hinges on political will. Activist protests, legal challenges, and aggressive media opposition are certain to follow. Left-wing groups are already framing the policy as a human rights crisis in the making, despite the fact that migrants entering Germany from neighboring countries like Austria, France, or Poland are not fleeing warzones.
In reality, critics argue, the past ten years have exposed a broken asylum system, where economic migrants exploit humanitarian loopholes to gain entry to countries with generous social services and left-wing governments played along.
The German political class spent years insisting “nothing could be done.” Dobrindt just proved otherwise.
Despite telling the public that these policies were impossible to change, they were, instead, able to be changed at any moment.
The pushback order, if maintained, may not only mark the end of ‘Merkelism’, it could also signal the collapse of one of the most self-destructive political eras in European history.
The prior neoliberal policies of low birthrates and open borders was leading to a demographic collapse across western nations that some label a ‘national suicide.’
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