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By Johanna Urbancik
Published on
Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has claimed a “migration turnaround” as he approaches a year in office, but courts have begun striking down the border controls at the centre of his policy and migration researchers have questioned whether his figures prove anything at all.
Dobrindt of the centre-right CSU announced tighter border controls on his first day in office, fulfilling a key campaign pledge of the CDU/CSU coalition.
Federal police have since turned back asylum seekers at the border, around 1,340 people between Dobrindt’s appointment and April 2026, according to Tagesschau.
Monthly rejections have remained steady at between 2,000 and 3,000, roughly unchanged from before he took office.
Applications for asylum have fallen more sharply: from 350,000 in 2023 to 170,000 last year.
Dobrindt has cited the drop as evidence that his approach is working. “We have now been able to execute 8,000 arrest warrants at the border,” he told the Die Welt daily.
Doubts from academia and judiciary
However, migration researcher Victoria Rietig dismissed that reasoning.
“When the figures go up, people say we are lightening the dark field. If the numbers go down, they say people are deterred and if the numbers stay the same, they say we are stabilising the situation,” she told Tagesschau.
“Scientifically, of course, that’s complete rubbish, but politically it’s brilliant.”
Several courts have ruled against the controls. The Koblenz Administrative Court most recently found that internal border controls at the Luxembourg-German border between March and September 2025 were unlawful, ruling that the federal government had not adequately justified their necessity.
Dobrindt has said he intends to maintain the controls regardless. SPD politician Uli Grötsch said it was “urgent” to find ways to organise border controls in accordance with the law.
Dobrindt has described the controls as a temporary measure, saying Germany can “move away from border controls again” once the European migration system is functioning. He did not say when that might be.
Taliban negotiations
His decision to organise deportations to Afghanistan through direct contact with the Taliban has drawn the sharpest criticism. Greens MP Marcel Emmerich called it a “massive border shift” and accused Dobrindt of acting as a “door opener for the Taliban.”
Research by ZDF’s Magazin Royale found Taliban representatives had been involved in German official processes to facilitate the deportations.
“The fact that this regime stands for terror, systematically violates human rights and massively oppresses women is simply being ignored,” Emmerich said.
SPD Minister President of Saarland Anke Rehlinger warned against making the controls permanent.
“I still believe that permanent border controls are not the solution of choice in Europe,” she said, adding that in the long term they would do more harm than good.
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