D ie new fatal shootings in Minneapolis have caused horror across all parties in Germany. Green Party leader Felix Banaszak speaks of “obvious executions by ICE agents that are shocking.” He suggests summoning the US ambassador and putting ICE commanders on EU sanctions lists. Even Jens Spahn is observing developments in the USA “with great concern,” as he said Bildnewspaper revealed.
Only the AfD in Bavaria is openly toying with a force “similar to the ICE” that takes a similarly merciless approach to the matter. But the chairman of the police union, Jochen Kopelke, weighs it down: an operation like the one in Minneapolis would be “out of the question” in this country, he reassures – the police laws and the tasks of the German police simply do not allow for that.
This is indeed reassuring. Nevertheless, it is too easy to be outraged about the conditions in the USA and to believe in the comforting certainty that something like this would not be possible here. The fatal shootings in Minneapolis are just the climax so far of a migration panic that has gripped many countries around the world and that has not left Germany unscathed.
The fear of supposed “mass immigration” and “infiltration” by “illegal migrants” has also led to a frenzy of deportations in this country, which fortunately differs significantly in form and extent from the excesses in the USA, but shows a similar tendency.
As a reminder: It was a social democratic chancellor who once promised deportations “on a large scale” in order to deal with allegedly uncontrolled immigration. Under the traffic light government, over 20,000 people were deported from Germany in 2024 alone. Most of the time they were taken from their beds at night or in the morning – because of the alleged risk of escape. With its “Repatriation Improvement Act”, the traffic light has already tightened the deportation rules and expanded the powers of the police.
That wasn’t enough for the Union, which is why it ran its election campaign with the promise of a “migration turnaround”. CSU Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt is now implementing this promise. In almost every one of his speeches, he boasts of having significantly reduced the number of asylum applications and increased the number of deportations – and considers this to be an argument against the AfD.
Besides, want Dobrindt foreign criminals to Afghanistan, Syria, Iran together with other EU countries, he is pushing for the establishment of deportation centers outside the EU – in the future, rejected asylum seekers will be accommodated in these “return hubs” in order to deport them more quickly. Will these planned EU deportation centers be so different from the “detention centers” in the USA, which are like high-security prisons with cell cages and chain-link fences? You’ll see that.
Omnipresence of arrests
In his deportation madness, Dobrindt is not as far removed from the “remigration fantasies” of an AfD as he would like to believe. He also tends towards “well-tempered cruelty”, as recommended not only by the AfD hardliner Björn Höcke, but also by the media philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, who is popular in conservative circles, in migration policy.
It is indeed reassuring that it would not be possible in Germany to equip the Federal Police with the same resources, powers and tasks as Donald Trump has done in the USA with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency ICE by greatly increasing its budget, more than doubling its staff and greatly expanding its powers. This omnipotence has led to the arrests and deaths that are now causing a stir and shock around the world.
But also German police officers sometimes have a pistol that is a little too loose. Every year around a dozen people are shot by police officers – in 2025 there were 16, the year before that 22, and there are hardly any trials or even convictions.
Germany is still a long way from the situation in the USA: Police violence there has always had completely different dimensions. Every year, hundreds of mostly black people fall victim to police bullets; the situation is made worse by the liberal gun laws in the USA.
What’s also special about the recent deadly shootings in Minneapolis is that the victims in both cases were white people, both of whom opposed the crackdowns on immigrants. Deterring others from such commitment is the aim of the unleashed violence of the ICE agents, which is justified by a tough course against “illegal” migrants. This course is generally popular, both here and in the USA. You just don’t want to see ugly scenes like those in Minneapolis.