FAILED Afghan asylum seeker Bashir Kosar has been given an official ultimatum: Leave Germany by September 9 or you will be deported.
With his dreams of becoming a police officer in his adopted land now seemingly shattered, the 19-year-old student told me: “I’m very frightened. I’ve lost hope.”
Darren FletcherGermany has beefed up its border security — turning away most asylum seekers — and scrapped fast-track citizenship[/caption]
Darren FletcherBashir Kosar has been given an official ultimatum: Leave Germany by September 9 or you will be deported[/caption]
Darren FletcherLaw and justice councillor Darius Smolinski, pictured at the Lubieszyn border crossing, defends the protests at the border, saying: ‘they aren’t hooligans, they’re patriots’[/caption]
Bright and chatty, the youngster who had already made a claim for asylum in Greece, has now fallen foul of Germany’s clampdown on mass migration.
As Nigel Farage’s Reform UK proposes deporting 600,000 asylum seekers — including to Afghanistan — German repatriation flights have already taken off.
And the land which once offered generous hospitality to migrants has beefed up its border security — turning away most asylum seekers — and scrapped fast-track citizenship.
A decade ago this week, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel famously told her people “we can do this” as some 1.2million migrants poured in, mainly from war-ravaged Syria.
Germans gathered at train stations with “refugees welcome” banners and gifts of food and clothing.
Now, with a faltering economy and a spate of knife and car-ramming crimes linked to migrants, that mood has soured.
The far-right AfD party — which calls for “remigration” — is currently polling at 25 per cent, just a point behind the largest party, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union.
‘For your own good, leave this country’
In July, Germany ignored United Nations advice and deported 81 Afghan migrants back to their homeland. They all had criminal records and included a man who had raped a 14-year-old girl, and several convicted of murder or attempted murder.
Now activists tell me they are worried failed Afghan asylum seekers like Bashir could be next.
Mitra Hashemi, 30, president of the German-Afghan Association, insisted: “I think in the near future there will be many flights even for those who have committed no crime.”
Living in a migrant camp outside Berlin, Bashir fears he will be ordered back to Greece — or even his Taliban-ruled native land, saying: “I will be in big danger if I’m sent back to Afghanistan.
“It terrifies me — my mental health is suffering. I was in Greece for three months but there are no jobs or education opportunities for me there.”
Deportation flights have also taken off for Nigeria, Ghana, Iran, Iraq, Serbia and Moldova.
Germany’s tough new measures have led to first-time asylum applications in the first six months of 2025 falling to just over 60,000 — a decrease of almost half on the same period last year.
It helps explain why Mr Farage name-checked the EU nation as he made his deportation pledge last week.
Germany’s hard line has also seen it pushing migrants back to Poland.
Poles have reacted by forming the civilian Border Defence Movement that monitors the 190-mile German/Polish frontier.
It was the Germans who destroyed the open border with migrant pushbacks and bringing in border guards with guns
Darius Smolinski
Local politicians, football “ultras” and citizen vigilantes all joined protests which led to the Polish government reintroducing border guards to replicate a similar move by Germany.
At the Lubieszyn border crossing which divides the east German town of Bismark from Poland’s seventh biggest city Szczecin, the protesters’ message here is stark.
A sign on a fence at the border says in English, Arabic and Somalian: “Information for illegal immigrants. You are not welcome here. For your own good, leave this country.”
On this windswept plateau, the European Union’s dream of passport-free open borders is currently dead. German guards now stop traffic looking for migrants while armed Polish soldiers and police wave down vehicles on their side of the crossing.
Project manager Mieczyslaw Nekanda-Trepka, 54, told me: “Germany is pushing their migrant problem on to us. That’s not being a good neighbour.”
Darren FletcherThe protesters insist they’re not allowed to apprehend migrants but are here to ensure that border guards will remain[/caption]
Darren FletcherThe Polish border crossing of Rosowek, where police and military check vehicles crossing[/caption]
The protesters insist they’re not allowed to apprehend migrants but are here to ensure that border guards — reintroduced in July — will remain.
Darius Smolinski, 47, a Polish local councillor with the right-wing Law And Justice Party, told me: “It was the Germans who destroyed the open border with migrant pushbacks and bringing in border guards with guns.
“Ordinary people are here protesting because they are afraid of illegal immigration.”
Wearing the white strip of local football team Pogon Szczecin, he defended so-called ultras who have amassed at the border: “They aren’t hooligans, they’re patriots.”
The welcoming culture was contradicted. Many people who had supported it became fearful
Franco Clemens
Freelance journalist Tomasz Duklanowski, 53, who lives nearby, said: “Polish people don’t want immigrants because we see what’s happening in Germany, France and the UK.
“People here are worried about terrorism and that migrants will take benefits and not go to work.”
At the nearby border crossing of Rosowek, I watched as a Berlin university professor and his family were led off a bus by Polish border guards.
Professor Usman Akhtar, 35, originally from Pakistan and now living in Berlin, told me: “I normally travel on a residency card between Germany and Poland but they now want to see my passport. We were due to spend two days on holiday in Poland but my passport is back in Berlin.”
Germany’s new immigration rules
The new German government’s immigration policy changes represent a substantial tightening compared to recent years
Gone is the controversial 2015 “open door” policy brought in under Angela Merkel.
Instead, in a legally contentious move, Germany will now attempt to turn away migrants without proper documentation.
However, children and pregnant women are expected to be a exception to this rule.
Germany’s border police is set to be beefed up with 3,000 extra officers under plans announced shortly after Friedrich Merz assumed office.
It will take the force’s total numbers to 14,000 to help with the country’s bid to tighten controls.
The governing coalition also plans further measures including deportations to Syria and suspending family reunions.
The high security on the frontier is a far cry from Angela Merkel’s open borders of a decade ago.
Shaking his head, he understands the added security but adds: “This is no longer an open border.”
German attitudes to the newcomers witnessed a sea change after groups of men of North African and Arab appearance attacked women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve of 2015.
‘Eighty-one people deported? It’s a joke’
There were 511 complaints of sexual assault and 28 of rape or attempted rape. There were similar attacks in other German cities that night.
Social worker Franco Clemens, who ran a Cologne refugee accommodation centre at the time, said the sexual assaults “caused a paradigm shift”.
He added: “The welcoming culture was contradicted. Many people who had supported it became fearful.”
Security consultant Stefan Bisanz, who worked in the German army’s military police and for the German Ministry of Defence, said: “There is nothing inhumane about wanting to know who you’re letting into your own country.”
And he warned: “If people don’t feel heard by those in power or feel their views and fears are not being taken seriously then you end up with extremism.”
If people don’t feel heard by those in power or feel their views and fears are not being taken seriously then you end up with extremism
Stefan Bisanz
Last year, around 3.48million refugees were reported to be living in Germany, with 334,000 arriving in 2023 alone.
The vast majority of new arrivals settled peacefully, with around two-thirds of working age refugees finding jobs.
Failed asylum seekers from Afghanistan have come under the spotlight after two migrants carried out recent deadly attacks on members of the public.
In January, an Afghan who was meant to be deported ambushed nursery children in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, and stabbed a two-year-old and an adult to death.
EPAGerman attitudes to the newcomers witnessed a sea change after groups of men of North African and Arab appearance attacked women[/caption]
AFPA decade ago this week, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel famously told her people ‘we can do this’ as some 1.2million migrants poured in, mainly from war-ravaged Syria[/caption]
GettyIf Nigel Farage wants to copy Germany’s deportation flights to Afghanistan, he will first have to accommodate the Taliban[/caption]
The following month, a failed Afghan asylum seeker ploughed a Mini Cooper into a crowd in Munich, killing a mother and her two-year-old daughter.
Germany is home to around 450,000 Afghan nationals of which almost 11,500 have been given deportation orders like Bashir or who only have temporary legal status.
If Nigel Farage wants to copy Germany’s deportation flights to Afghanistan he will first have to accommodate the Taliban.
Germany has welcomed two Taliban diplomats to the country — one based in its Berlin Embassy, the other in its Bonn consulate.
In her neat West Berlin office, Afghan-German activist Mitra Hashemi insisted: “It’s normalised cooperation with a terrorist group.
“It worries many Afghans who need to renew their passports and have to go to the embassy where a Taliban diplomat is now stationed.
I have nightmares that I will be sent back to Afghanistan. I’m even more afraid now that the Taliban are here in Germany.
Saifadin Bahara
“It means the Taliban will know where they are — and many still have family back in Afghanistan.”
The Sun’s requests to the embassy for an interview with a Taliban representative went unanswered.
Failed Afghan asylum seeker Saifadin Bahara, 27, who fled his homeland after the Taliban torched his shop, told me: “I have nightmares that I will be sent back to Afghanistan. I’m even more afraid now that the Taliban are here in Germany.”
Germany has not formally recognised the Taliban — which is still under international sanction — and has negotiated with them using Qatar as a go-between.
Emily Barnickel, from the Refugee Council Berlin, told The Sun that allowing Taliban diplomats into Germany was “devastating”.
She said: “Germany is legitimising the Taliban regime.
“The government has allowed regime members to live here while in Afghanistan the Taliban suppresses women and queer people.”
Yet with the far-right AfD soaring in the polls, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will be pressured to step up the deportation flights.
AfD MP Marc Bernhard said of the Afghan deportation flight: “Eighty-one people? It’s a joke. That’s 81 out of 11,500 who have been given deportation orders. And that’s just Afghans.
“The courts have said they need to leave the country immediately. And they’re still here. The government isn’t doing anything about it.”
The Taliban say they are “ready and willing” to work with Mr Farage on UK deportations.
Germany paid each of the Afghan criminals it deported around £900 to overcome potential legal hurdles of sending them home destitute.
Britain lost 457 military personnel in Afghanistan.
Mr Farage will find out soon enough if voters are ready to follow Germany’s lead and do a deal with the devil.
What was Merkel’s ‘open doors’ policy?
At the height of the European migrant crisis in the mid-2010s, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a decision that would shape her legacy.
While other European capitals debated how to respond to the large scale movement of people across the continent, Merkel declined to turn migrants away.
This is what became her “open door” policy, and saw hundreds of thousands of refugees arrive in Germany.
The move was lauded and criticised at the time in equal measure, with Merkel repeatedly defending the move in the following years.
However, there has been sustained backlash to it – with rising anti-immigration sentiment spreading through Germany.
The Merz government’s announcement has brought the policy to an end.