Germany’s Interior Ministry supports the Central Council of Jews – the country’s EJC affiliate – whose President said those who disrespect German values should be stripped of their right of abode.
The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that fines and reprimands were not enough when tackling antisemitism and that migrants who offend Germany’s democratic values should be expelled.
“Those who knowingly and repeatedly violate our societal consensus should forfeit their right to stay,” he said.
The Interior Ministry, which is run by the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling CDU party, the CSU, says it “emphatically supports” Schuster’s proposal.
Deputy Minister Stephan Mayer told the Die Welt daily on Monday that “as a last resort, we should take away people’s right to stay in Germany if they have committed an offense motivated by antisemitism.”
He added that “those people thereby oppose the core values and beliefs of our democratic system.”
The Social Democrats, who are part of Germany’s ruling coalition, pointed out that the legal basis for Schuster’s proposal already exists.
The so-called “law of residence” allows for migrants to be deported if they have been convicted of a crime or if someone interferes with integration “in a reprehensible fashion.”
