In the first week of January, I received a letter from the Berlin Immigration Office, informing me that I had lost my right of freedom of movement in Germany, due to allegations around my involvement in the pro-Palestine movement. Since I’m a Polish citizen living in Berlin, I knew that deporting an EU national from another EU country is practically impossible. I contacted a lawyer and, given the lack of substantial legal reasoning behind the order, we filed a lawsuit against it, after which I didn’t think much of it.
I later found out that three other people active in the Palestine movement in Berlin, Roberta Murray, Shane O’Brien and Cooper Longbottom, received the same letters. Murray and O’Brien are Irish nationals, Longbottom is American. We understood this as yet another intimidation tactic from the state, which has also violently suppressed protests and arrested activists, and expected a long and dreary but not at all urgent process of fighting our deportation orders.
Then, at the beginning of March, each of our lawyers received on our behalf another letter, declaring that we are to be given until 21 April to voluntarily leave the country or we will be forcibly removed. The letters cite charges arising from our involvement in protests against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. None of the charges have yet led to a court hearing, yet the deportation letters conclude that we are a threat to public order and national security.
We’ve discussed the same topic in several threads already. And this one is really a new low. The issue at hand is that they are suspected of being involved in a violent occupation attempt of a university building that caused 100.000€ in damages and during which employees were threatened. Everything they say in their long article about this is “due to allegations around my involvement in the pro-Palestine movement”.
That, my friends, is called a lie.
The issue at hand is that they are suspected of being involved in a violent occupation attempt of a university building that caused 100.000€ in damages and during which employees were threatened.
The government of germany is supporting a genocide where innocent kids are being murdered daily, this is the context of protests. To me it sound like these protesters are working for justice much more than you or your government are doing.
This lie has been repeated multiple times by pro-genocide Germans.
None of these people were involved in vandalism. No charges were pressed against any of them.
“pro-genocide germans”? Seriously?
they are suspected of being involved
I am not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that suspicion should be enough to be deported?
Here is a more detailed article about the issue from a Law Oriented Publication by Wolters Kluwer.
Doch folgt aus dieser Vorschrift auch, dass ein Freizügigkeitsentzug vor einer strafrechtlichen Verurteilung per se unzulässig ist? Darüber scheint auch innerhalb der Berliner Verwaltung keine Einigkeit zu bestehen, wie aus internem E-Mail-Verkehr hervorgeht, der LTO vorliegt. Die Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport hatte das LEA um Ausstellung der Ausweisungs- und Verlustfeststellungsbescheide gebeten, doch die zuständige Sachbearbeiterin im LEA hatte dies zunächst verweigert . Hinsichtlich der drei Unionsbürger:innen hatte sie auf § 6 Abs. 2 FreizügG/EU hingewiesen. Die Voraussetzungen für einen Entzug lägen in dem frühen Ermittlungsstadium noch nicht vor. Der Abteilungsleiter in der Innenverwaltung sprach in einer knappen, per Blackberry versendeten Mail ein Machtwort – das offenbar Wirkung zeigte .
By law they can be deported for severe enough infractions without going through the whole chain and several legal instances until finally convicted. We could discuss if that makes sense… but that’s not the point here.
The point is that they are accused of illegal occupation of university facilities (inclusing property damage), obstruction of arrests, insulting police officers as fascists, chanting “From the river to the sea”-slogans (illegal in Germany)… all well documented.
And yet they don’t even try to argue about the law or the circumstances. They just straight out lie telling everyone that they did nothing and are deported because they are pro-Palestine. Seriously I’m impressed that none of those “reports” has started to talk about “thought crimes” and similiar bullshit yet just to divert from what they actually did.
You can be deported, even as a EU citizen, for being a threat to public safety. That can be as low bar as being homeless without a job, “go back home, apply for welfare there”. Neither being homeless nor unemployed is a crime but member states don’t want foreign citizens homeless and unemployed on their streets, nor pick up the bill, so they deport you.
There’s still charges of sorts but they’re not criminal, they’re administrative. You can still appeal to courts but it’s going to be administrative, not criminal, proceedings.
I’d say it’s a bit iffy to go the administrative route when criminal charges are already up in the air, and act on the administrative charges before the criminal ones are though but ultimately I think the courts will have an eye on that. Criminal proceedings take a long time because they’re quite detailed when it comes to establishing the degree of guilt which influences degree of punishment and stuff, all this is irrelevant here the administration just has to show that the verdict will be guilty, not get into the weeds of “a bit guilty” or “really guilty”. Also, that the crime actually concerns public safety they’d have a hard time arguing that for, say, fare evasion.
Hiding behind the law in answer to a moral question is utter cowardice. Just answer the damn question: “Yes, I do believe suspicion should be enough to get you deported.”
I sure hope you are never suspected of anything that would result in a similiar treatment.
You say “suspicion” like they weren’t literally caught in the act. They did it, it’s just a matter of if they’ll charge them. There’s no “suspicion”.
-
I was using the words of the oc commenter
-
Then we should wait not only until they are charged but until they are convicted. Unless you don’t believe in innocent until proven guilty.
Whatever their law says they can do then they can do. If that says they can be deported while under investigation like someone has said then that’s what they can do.
I believe in innocent until proven guilty, and when you’re arrested in the act and there’s no doubt whatsoever then that’s proven guilty already.
The question was what the oc commenter thought should happen, not what the law says.
But then again, I shouldn’t expect reading comprehension from someone that says
The republicans are the ones championing free speech lol. Democrats are the ones trying to push through censorship and get rid of free speech.
🤡🤡🤡
-
Reducing EU citizens with the priviledge of studying in Germany for free and involved in well documented illegal behavior to “simple suspicion should be enough to deport anyone” is a perfect example of reductio ad absurdum.
Also I did in no way hide behind the law but talked about the fact that we SHOULD discuss the actual laws, while those people instead chose to just lie and spread a narrative.
And so I will simply ignore you, as you obviously have no interest in arguing in good faith.
It’s not well documented until it’s proven in court…
Or they don’t want to waste money on a legal case and they is why they gave them the option to voluntarily leave. If they don’t they get arrested go to court possibly get a criminal record.
Wait so them being on video committing the offence, for example, wouldn’t be “well documented” to you?
If it was well documented, then there would be no reason not to have things taken to court.
Also risk of reoffending would be a valid reason for keeping them in jail on remand, so there is also no argument to be made for public safety.
The fact that they are walking free shows that the German judiciary does not consider them to be a danger to the public. Which is the entire reason why instead they are threatened with deportation as a replacement punishment while proper court proceedings do not grant the result wished by the government.
This kind of proceeding also isn’t new in Germany in its principle. There is a long history of people who were found with small amounts of cannabis, insufficient for a criminal charge, that then had their driving license revoked and faced other repressions by the executive branch, because the executive branch wanted to punish people for whom there is no evidence for a criminal conviction by a court of law.
These proceedings are fundamentally designed to undermine the rule of law and the principle of division of power.
Then charge them with conspiracy to commit vandalism or whatever. They have so far shown no evidence that they entered the building, much less did any vandalism or threats, and no charges have been made.
If you allow people to be deported without due process then you’ve given the power of arbitrary deportation of anyone legally in the country to the state. Look at how this is going in the US, we sent someone to a Salvadoran gulag over a tattoo and now we can’t even get them back home.
Do you really want to set this precedent and give that power to the afd if/when they gain power?
Ok, let me explain how the german system works:
- After the vandalism, some “protestors” were arrested and some protestors tried to stop the police from arresting them. Those four were part of that and that is a crime.
- If you take a look at the relevant news about this, officials of course said that they will be charged
- Police will investigate the crime and they also might show up at your doorstep and search your room or take your phone and computers.
- Prosecutors will build a case from this evidence. That will take some time as all evidence has to be collected and so on
- If prosecutors are deciding to charge you after reviewing the evidence, you will get a letter in the mail with those charges
- You will also get a date for your trial. That date will be in most cases several months or years after the crime itself. Courts are kind of overloaded, but the state is also giving you time to search for a lawyer and time to prepare a defense
- Then the trial will happen
There is due to privacy concern no communication about the charges to the public. I know that the US works differently, but we do not have a public list that says “Hans Müller charged for driving drunk” , “Peter Meier charged for beating his wife” or “Claudia Maschmeyer charged for bank robbery”.
So where are we:
- They have commited crimes for political reasons
- There might be a charge being prepared or they even might have it. We don’t know - officials are not allowed to talk about it and the protestors are obviously not telling the truth. So we do know nothing.
- They keeping to commit crimes for political reasons
- The State is using a law to kick out foreigners who are commiting crimes
And there is due process: They had their time to follow the order (as you can read in the article) and they are able to sue against that order.
Obelix, in case you have been involved in the occupation of the university that time, it is likely that you have been filmed by the police. If this is true, your chances are pretty low. Even when you behaved non-violent. There is a saying in German: mitgehangen, mitgefangen - it is like you would be a wolf in a pack and although you would stay outside the fence and not participate in the killing of sheep, you are done anyway.
Therefore my suggestion: if you are a foreigner and the police gives a final call to leave the place, follow the order of the police. Otherwise another saying applies: Dummheit schützt vor Strafe nicht (ignorance is no excuse).
BTW, the situation will get way darker when the AfD will be in power, and what the CDU has done until now, I have to admit that it does not look good for many people.
The deportation process shouldn’t precede the criminal trial, as seems to be the case here. That would probably violate the EU charter and ECHR.
If you take a look into the laws, no it doesn’t.
Oh but it does. So much so, that even the clerk who was given the task remonstrated. You can look it up here: https://fragdenstaat.de/artikel/exklusiv/2025/04/proteste-berlin-ausweisung/
Her reasoning:
According to § 6 para. 2 sentence 1 FreizügG/EU, the fact of a criminal conviction alone is not sufficient to justify the aforementioned decisions or measures. Only criminal convictions that have not yet been expunged from the Federal Central Criminal Register may be taken into account, and only to the extent that the circumstances on which they are based indicate personal conduct that poses a current threat to the freedom of movement.
That’s incorrect, let me post the german law:
(1) 1Der Verlust des Rechts nach § 2 Abs. 1 kann unbeschadet des § 2 Absatz 4 und des § 5 Absatz 4 nur aus Gründen der öffentlichen Ordnung, Sicherheit oder Gesundheit (Artikel 45 Absatz 3, Artikel 52 Absatz 1 des Vertrages über die Arbeitsweise der Europäischen Union) festgestellt und die Bescheinigung über das Daueraufenthaltsrecht oder die Aufenthaltskarte oder Daueraufenthaltskarte eingezogen werden. 2Aus den in Satz 1 genannten Gründen kann auch die Einreise verweigert werden. 3Die Feststellung aus Gründen der öffentlichen Gesundheit kann nur erfolgen, wenn es sich um Krankheiten mit epidemischem Potenzial im Sinne der einschlägigen Rechtsinstrumente der Weltgesundheitsorganisation und sonstige übertragbare, durch Infektionserreger oder Parasiten verursachte Krankheiten handelt, sofern gegen diese Krankheiten Maßnahmen im Bundesgebiet getroffen werden. 4Krankheiten, die nach Ablauf einer Frist von drei Monaten ab dem Zeitpunkt der Einreise auftreten, stellen keinen Grund für eine Feststellung nach Satz 1 dar.
(2) 1Die Tatsache einer strafrechtlichen Verurteilung genügt für sich allein nicht, um die in Absatz 1 genannten Entscheidungen oder Maßnahmen zu begründen. 2Es dürfen nur im Bundeszentralregister noch nicht getilgte strafrechtliche Verurteilungen und diese nur insoweit berücksichtigt werden, als die ihnen zu Grunde liegenden Umstände ein persönliches Verhalten erkennen lassen, das eine gegenwärtige Gefährdung der öffentlichen Ordnung darstellt. 3Es muss eine tatsächliche und hinreichend schwere Gefährdung vorliegen, die ein Grundinteresse der Gesellschaft berührt.
(3) Bei der Entscheidung nach Absatz 1 sind insbesondere die Dauer des Aufenthalts des Betroffenen in Deutschland, sein Alter, sein Gesundheitszustand, seine familiäre und wirtschaftliche Lage, seine soziale und kulturelle Integration in Deutschland und das Ausmaß seiner Bindungen zum Herkunftsstaat zu berücksichtigen.
(4) Eine Feststellung nach Absatz 1 darf nach Erwerb des Daueraufenthaltsrechts nur aus schwerwiegenden Gründen getroffen werden.
(5) 1Eine Feststellung nach Absatz 1 darf bei Unionsbürgern und ihren Familienangehörigen, die ihren Aufenthalt in den letzten zehn Jahren im Bundesgebiet hatten, und bei Minderjährigen nur aus zwingenden Gründen der öffentlichen Sicherheit getroffen werden. 2Für Minderjährige gilt dies nicht, wenn der Verlust des Aufenthaltsrechts zum Wohl des Kindes notwendig ist. 3Zwingende Gründe der öffentlichen Sicherheit können nur dann vorliegen, wenn der Betroffene wegen einer oder mehrerer vorsätzlicher Straftaten rechtskräftig zu einer Freiheits- oder Jugendstrafe von mindestens fünf Jahren verurteilt oder bei der letzten rechtskräftigen Verurteilung Sicherungsverwahrung angeordnet wurde, wenn die Sicherheit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland betroffen ist oder wenn vom Betroffenen eine terroristische Gefahr ausgeht.
(6) Die Entscheidungen oder Maßnahmen, die den Verlust des Aufenthaltsrechts oder des Daueraufenthaltsrechts betreffen, dürfen nicht zu wirtschaftlichen Zwecken getroffen werden.
(7) Wird der Pass, Personalausweis oder sonstige Passersatz ungültig, so kann dies die Aufenthaltsbeendigung nicht begründen.
(8) 1Vor der Feststellung nach Absatz 1 soll der Betroffene angehört werden. 2Die Feststellung bedarf der Schriftform.
(9) Die Absätze 1 bis 8 finden auf Personen, die ein Recht zur Einreise und zum Aufenthalt im Bundesgebiet nach § 3a Absatz 1 haben, entsprechende Anwendung.
https://www.buzer.de/6_FreizuegG-EU.htm
So, what does this say: Paragraph 1 says that you can lose the Freizügigkeit only because of “öffentliche Ordnung” , “öffentliche Sicherheit” and “health” (think Covid restrictions).
Paragraph 2 is the one in question and that says that you can’t lose the Freizügigkeit because you are sentenced by a court. You have to be a danger to society (“gegenwärtige Gefährdung der öffentlichen Ordnung”) and just a criminal conviction doesn’t say that. This paragraph doesn’t say that you can’t lose the Freizügigkeit without a court order, it basically prevents the state from deporting every foreigner who commits a crime.
If you read the FragdenStaat text based on this knowledge, it is exactly what happens. The clerk gets asked to start with the process to take away their Freizügigkeit and says that he can’t do this because there are no criminal convictions. And then the higher ups are saying “you don’t need a criminal conviction, our order is based on the police files that prove the danger to society”. So yeah, read the law and be sure to read it correctly.
(And since they have a lawyer that can explain that to them, the whole Guardian article is trash)
It should though, otherwise you believe “guilty until proven innocent” is valid, and you are a fascist.
Hmm, unusual for Germany to align itself with fascism
Have you verified that the letters are genuine?
They are the result of a more than year-long campaign by the liberal Ampel coalition – the Social Democratic party (SPD), the Free Democratic party (FDP) and the Greens – and the German media, calling for mass deportations, widely seen as a response to the growing pro-Palestinian movement, and targeted predominantly at the Arab and Muslim German population.
They are calling for mass deportations because they are generally racist idiots, not for being pro-Palestine. Dude not everything is about the Palestine Issue.
Still Authorities in Berlin including a police have shown a disturbing behaviour since the CDU got elected.
Like the Theatre with the Bus of Zentrum für politische SchönheitNo the German authorities are the racist idiots. And so it anyone agreeing with the German authorities.
Scratch that. Nazis is the right word.
It isn’t necessarily one or another. It’s probably intersectional.
It is. Support for Israel and opposition to Palestinians and claiming Arabs in general to be antisemitic has been used, in particular in Berlin, by conservative/reactionary and fascist groups as a pretense to prove that they couldn’t be antisemitic and as an opportunity to attack internationalist, feminist and otherwise leftist groups.
The pattern already existed before October 7 2023 and the escalation came in conjunction with other racist escalations. However a key aspect in my eyes is that in the past year and a half formerly progressive politics such as the Green party and the still progressive parts of SPD and small parts of die Linke have joined into the racist and authoritarian crackdown, e.g. with resolutions demanding to limit academic and cultural independence, supporting police violence against demonstrations, mass surveillance and other authoritarian measures. All the while white German Neonazi antisemities are conveniently kept out of the picture of Antisemitism in Germany by the majority of politics, despite being responsible for most antisemitic crimes.
For the three EU citizens this is most likely illegal and they most likely will win in court. For the American Cooper Longbottom the situation is worse though.
That all would change if they get convicted though. The Berlin Senate claims they entered the university breaking open doors and threatening workers with axes. If they can prove that in court, then all of them could be kicked out of Germany. Well after being at least six months in prison that is.
