Leading German conservative Merz: Deport Syrian and Afghan criminals

Friedrich Merz, the conservative German politician leading polls ahead of February's elections, called for Syrian and Afghan migrants found guilty of crimes to be repatriated, in remarks to dpa on Monday.

Merz, the candidate for chancellor for the CDU/CSU alliance, acknowledged that the situation in Syria was unstable. "But we in the CDU/CSU have long been of the opinion that people can and should in principle be deported to Afghanistan and Syria. We will do this," he said.

Close attention now had to be paid to who should be allowed to come to Europe from Syria, he said. "I would in any case not like to see the members of the al-Assad militias who committed serious crimes in Syria here in Germany," he said.

"The clear message has to be: We will send you back at the borders immediately," Merz said, calling for coordination on this with all other European Union countries.

According to the authorities, there are around 975,000 Syrians currently living in Germany, most having arrived since 2015. More than 300,000 of them have lower-level protected status and have not been taken in on grounds of individual persecution.

Merz said that Germany had helped many refugees, but the number in the country was now at a level where local authorities were overextended. "We need a political change in immigration policy as well," he said.

The CDU/CSU proposed to strictly separate immigration for economic and for asylum reasons, with separate procedures for each, he said, calling for changes at EU level to manage the migration crisis.

The CDU/CSU is polling in first place at above 30% in the run-up to the February 23 elections, ahead of the far-right AfD on around 18%, outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left Social Democrats on around 16% and the Greens on around 13%.