Germany to Cut Benefits for Refugees Facing Deportation

Germany says it will cut benefits to refugees facing deportation, part of a package of tough new measures drafted in response to last week’s terror attack in the western city of Solingen.

Ministers also said they would introduce a ban on knives at big public events and allow police investigators to use facial recognition software to identify crime suspects.

“The Solingen attack has shocked us to the core,” said Nancy Faeser, interior minister. “We always said the government would respond to it with tough measures.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz had come under intense pressure to overhaul immigration policy and tighten weapons laws as a result of the Solingen incident, where three people were stabbed to death and eight injured. Terror group Isis has claimed responsibility for the knife attack.

A 26-year-old Syrian refugee was arrested last Saturday over the incident after handing himself into police and has been remanded in custody on suspicion of murder and membership of a terror organisation.

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Faeser said a refugee would no longer be entitled to welfare benefits if a country has agreed to take them back under the Dublin rules.

Marco Buschmann, justice minister, said this would help ensure that the person earmarked for deportation “would then get in touch with the authorities or might voluntarily move to the country responsible for him, for economic reasons”.

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Authorities will also acquire more powers to crack down on Islamist terror. Investigators will be allowed to use facial recognition software to identify suspects and to employ artificial intelligence to analyse police data.

Buschmann said any immigrant who attacks or threatens people with a knife “must be quickly deported”.

“Whoever attacks anyone on the basis of their gender, sexual orientation or their Jewish faith . . . whoever is motivated by Islamism, jihadism or other extremist ideas cannot receive asylum and be recognised as a refugee in Germany,” said Buschmann. Germany has seen an increase in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s terror attack on October 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza.

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