Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has revealed she is sending 100,000 asylum seekers back from Germany to their home countries. While 60,000 are going voluntarily through repatriation programmes, the other 40,000 are being deported against their will.
Asylum seekers will be given “start-up” financial aid
Germany is not kicking them out with nothing. Merkel says they will be giving the asylum seekers some money as a “start-up” to help them get back on their feet back home. They will also be paying for their plane fare out of the country.
Merkel made the announcement at the regional conference for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Neumünster, telling CDU members attending that “it cannot be that all young people from Afghanistan come to Germany,” meaning she wants to get rid of at least some of the young Afghans who have fled their wartorn homeland and sought asylum in her country.
She believes it is unfair that they have come to Germany when there are plenty of other options (although there really aren’t).
Could be a response to Merkel’s controversial “open door” policy
This could be a response to the controversy Merkel faced from the German people when she announced her “open door” policy for dealing with the current refugee crisis in Europe, which is the worst such crisis since the Second World War, when people were also being bombed out of their homes, yet we give that more attention than the one currently happening because it happened here and not far away in the Middle East.
Merkel did stress that she didn’t want to just kick them out and leave them to survive on their own as she wants to repatriate the ones she is having to ask to leave.
Merkel is planning to run again next year
Merkel, 62, announced earlier this month her intentions to run for chancellor yet again next year. She has been the chancellor of Germany since 2005, because unlike other democratic nations such as America, German political leaders are not limited by set terms, so she could theoretically keep running the country for the rest of her life if she continues to lead the polls, but this polarising situation with the refugees could change her long-running popularity.
