Dobrindt closes borders for asylum seekers: Will they really be rejected now?

Starting Wednesday, asylum seekers were to be turned back at the border. This was the directive from the new Interior Minister. What does this look like in reality? We were at the border with Poland.

Federal police officers keep an eye on suspicious vehicles traveling from Slubice, Poland, to Frankfurt (Oder). Patrick Pleul/dpa

It's sunny over the city this morning, the bright light reflecting off the waves of the Oder. Normally, it would be a day like any other in Frankfurt (Oder) – commuter traffic, trucks from Poland trudging westward. But today, nothing is normal. Because today is day one of the Merz Republic.

It's just after nine o'clock when the first camera crews set up their tripods in front of the border crossing, which leads over a narrow bridge. Cameras click, lenses zoom – the republic looks east. Because here, at one of Germany's most symbolic borders, what Friedrich Merz has promised in countless talk shows, interviews, and campaign events is about to begin: "From day one, illegal migration will be stopped."

What follows is an almost surreal mix of high security and media-friendly staging. Dozens of police cars line the B112 toward the border bridge. Officers in heavy protective gear stand in line. Anyone trying to enter Germany is stopped, waved over, and questioned. Cars repeatedly back up on the bridge. A Polish family with Berlin license plates doesn't understand why they have to wait in the middle of the street with a small child.

After the first failed chancellor election: Now Merz wants to take action

In Berlin, less than an hour's drive from Frankfurt (Oder), the new cabinet began work the previous evening, several hours after Merz nearly lost the chancellorship. The CDU candidate suffered a resounding defeat in the first round of voting, with 18 members of his coalition refusing to endorse him. A first in the history of the Federal Republic.

By the evening, Merz had collected himself again. And on Wednesday, the new Federal Minister of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), announced what had been promised during the election campaign: an immediate ban on asylum applications and controls at all German borders. At midday, he issued a verbal order to the Federal Police to strengthen border controls and increase rejections of illegal entries. The current 11,000 officers will likely be reinforced by an additional 2,000 to 3,000 officers.

The CSU politician also revoked in writing an earlier verbal instruction given to the Federal Police by former Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) in 2015. According to that instruction, "Third-country nationals without residence permits and who submit a request for asylum are to be permitted entry." This was the case at a time when Chancellor Angela Merkel had still proclaimed a welcoming culture for all refugees. Merkel's migration policy has thus come to an end.

In Frankfurt (Oder), the new policy is implemented immediately. But initially, it's a policy of images, not numbers. In the border town, this primarily means more uniforms, more controls. And, at least on day one of the Merz Republic, there are no refugees here who can be turned away.

Smugglers are now bringing refugees across the green border

A young federal police officer in his early thirties smokes nervously at a mobile checkpoint. "It won't work like this," he says quietly. "But maybe it's not supposed to." Smugglers are now looking for other routes anyway, bringing migrants to the green border rather than to Frankfurt (Oder). He seems resigned.

The practices of criminal human smugglers are well known: Many illegal migrants cross the Belarusian border and are then driven by car to the western Polish border. Sometimes they are driven directly across in cars or vans and then abandoned in Brandenburg. The smugglers then take a photo to send to their clients as proof of the successful smuggling and so they can receive their €600 fee.

Other smugglers let the migrants out of their cars in places like Slubice so that they can walk over the city bridge to Frankfurt (Oder) – or to Hohenwutzen or Küstrin, 80 and 30 kilometers north of Frankfurt, respectively.

Police officer in Küstrin-Kietz: “Refugees do not register with us”

That's why a police car is parked at the Oder Bridge in Küstrin-Kietz, where cars are backed up. Bollards narrow the roadway, making it difficult for vehicles to move forward. But this has nothing to do with migrants, says the officer, but rather with the fact that the bridge can no longer support trucks. They can no longer cross because of the narrowed roadway. He hasn't checked any migrants today, and no one has called for "asylum." "Refugees don't register with us," he says with a grin. Sometimes they come in droves, sometimes not at all, says the federal police officer.

When Germany introduced stationary border controls along its border with Poland in September of last year, uniformed federal police officers took up permanent positions at the city bridge to Słubice. Each day, they received around ten refugees and brought them for identification. Until the Dobrindt decree, the federal police served merely as a kind of reception committee.

Little by little, they expanded the base on the central island: a recreation container, a toilet container, a huge tent where cars flagged down by officers are inspected. Two officers are still standing at the side of the road today, inspecting the passing vehicles coming from Poland. One carries a Heckler & Koch MP5 across his chest. The other holds out his stop sign as a white van approaches. Vans, Polish taxis, and old VW Golfs are particularly in focus. The exact criteria used by the federal police for their checks is secret.

Bar owner complains: “Refugees come here every night”

It's midday, and the number of journalists isn't diminishing. So far, not a single refugee has arrived. Instead, Andreas Broska, head of the Federal Police Directorate Group within the German Police Union (GdP), arrives. "You can already tell: There's a tense atmosphere and a certain uncertainty because my colleagues don't yet know which way things are going," he says.

He says what most federal police officers are thinking that day: that everyone is waiting for the precise instructions—whether asylum seekers should be sent back along the border or whether they should first be taken to the police station and then handed over to Poland. There's nothing in writing yet.

Meanwhile, police union representative Broska doubts that Merz and Dobrindt's plans can be implemented so quickly. "That takes time," he says. This would have to be discussed with the staff councils. Moreover, it's not easy to transfer officers so quickly. Already, on-call police officers from Bad Düben, Ratzeburg, and Blumberg are being deployed, working 12-hour shifts away from home all week and having to sleep in two-bed rooms.

Fifty meters behind the city bridge in Frankfurt (Oder), a Greek man has owned a bar for several years. "I'll be glad when this finally stops. Refugees come here every night, many young men, often with knives in their pockets," he complains. "The people here live in fear." He therefore hopes that the new government will finally impose "stricter limits." But he also shrugs resignedly and says: "Hopefully, this isn't all just symbolic politics."