Immigration rows: US and Germany compared Published 18 June 2018 media caption Zero-tolerance: The US policy dividing families and opinion US President Donald Trump recently cited the immigration row in Germany to defend his own controversial policies, but how similar are the two nations when it comes to migrants? "We don't want what is happening with immigration in Europe to happen with us!" Mr Trump said. Mrs Merkel is in the middle of a serious domestic row within her coalition government over immigration policy. Who are the migrants and why are they coming? Germany: An estimated 1.2 million asylum seekers entered Germany during the migrant crisis of 2015-2016, more than half from war-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Ongoing violence and crippling poverty are the main reasons for migrants from the Middle East to seek asylum in Europe. Among Syrian and Iraqi asylum seekers, one phrase commonly heard on the migration route north was "Europe invited us" or "Merkel invited us". image copyright Reuters image caption The number of people trying to cross into the US has risen sharply recently United States: Migrants in the US are also largely fleeing armed conflict and extreme poverty, as well as gang-related violence. Most are from Mexico and what is known as Central America's Northern Triangle region - Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. An estimated 10% of the population in the Northern Triangle has fled to other countries due to the dangerous conditions. What's the scale of the problem? Germany: More than one million migrants arrived in Germany as part of Mrs Merkel's open-door policy in 2015. The numbers have since declined: over 720,000 people applied for asylum in 2016 compared with 200,000 last year. This decrease is largely due to an EU deal with Turkey and new border fences in the Balkans. United States: The number of families trying to enter the US overland without documentation is on the rise - comparing May 2018 and 2017, the rise this year was of 160%. The Pew Research Center reported that from 2007-2015, the unauthorised immigrant population in the US from the Northern Triangle in particular grew 25%. How are authorities dealing with it? Germany: Germany's new interior minister, Horst Seehofer, is pressing ahead with controversial plans to hold asylum seekers in centres until their right to stay is determined. Under Mr Seehofer's proposals, migrants are to be kept in so-called "anchor centres" for up to 18 months while their requests are processed. Mr Seehofer also wants police to have the power to turn away undocumented migrants at the border. Officials say the first centre is likely to be set up in Bavaria this year. image copyright EPA image caption Horst Seehofer (L) opposes Chancellor Merkel's liberal stance on immigration United States: Under the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal border crossings, adults attempting to cross outside of official entry points are placed in custody and face criminal prosecution. It is a change to a long-standing policy of charging most of those crossing for the first time with a misdemeanour offence. Between 19 April and 31 May there were nearly 2,000 family separations. As a result, hundreds of children are now being housed away from their parents in detention centres, including warehouses, converted supermarkets and possibly tents. What's the political fallout? Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel was widely criticised over her decision to open Germany's borders during Europe's refugee crisis in 2015. The backlash sparked by her policy helped fuel the country's far right in last year's election and led to the worst electoral performance in almost 70 years for her CDU party. Mrs Merkel has flatly refused to back Mr Seehofer's plan to turn away migrants at the German border if they have already registered elsewhere in the EU. Now, there is a risk that the Christian Social Union could break away from the coalition, or at least trigger a confidence vote in Mrs Merkel's leadership. media caption US child migrants: Five things to know United States: On Monday, Mr Trump called the family separations "tough and horrible" but added that the "US will not be a migrant camp". Democrats - and numerous Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan - have said the president's hardline approach is not the answer. The United Nations has called on the US to immediately halt the separations.<doc-sep>BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel turned to her European neighbors this weekend for help with a fierce domestic dispute over immigration that is threatening to topple her three-party coalition. Aides to the chancellor reached out to the governments of several European Union members on the front line of the Continent’s immigration crisis to sound out their willingness to readmit migrants that try to cross from their territory into Germany, European officials said on Sunday. Among those approached were the governments of Austria, Greece, Italy and Bulgaria, the officials said. Berlin also liaised with the European Commission, the EU’s executive body. Ms. Merkel’s move came after her own interior minister, Horst Seehofer, handed the chancellor an ultimatum last week, warning that he could close the country’s borders to certain categories of illegal migrants as early as Monday. Mr. Seehofer chairs the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. While the two parties have historically been closely aligned, sharing a parliamentary group, the CSU has grown increasingly hostile to Ms. Merkel’s open-border refugee policy, which it has vowed to end ahead of a key election in October. Opinion polls suggest the CSU could lose its absolute majority amid a robust performance by the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany. The dispute erupted early last week when Mr. Seehofer, who was to unveil a 63-point “master-plan” to cut immigration, abruptly canceled his presentation after Ms. Merkel vetoed a single measure: the decision to turn back migrants with an open asylum application in another EU member state. Currently, all asylum seekers are allowed into Germany pending a review of their cases. Officials close to Ms. Merkel said that a unilateral closure of the border would threaten the EU’s document-free travel zone, gum up cross-border economic activity and pile up political tension at a time of surging nationalism across Europe. Mr. Seehofer, however, warned that he would consult his party’s governing body on Monday morning and, if given a mandate, could defy Ms. Merkel and immediately start turning back migrants ineligible for asylum. This would almost certainly force the chancellor to dismiss the minister and his party, leading to the loss of the government’s parliamentary majority. Ms. Merkel’s weekend outreach to Germany’s southern neighbors appeared aimed at giving the chancellor diplomatic cover to allow Mr. Seehofer to implement his measure without risking a pushback from those countries. Under European Union rules, refugees must apply for asylum in the country where they first entered the bloc. Highlighting the difficulties Ms. Merkel may face in achieving cross-border consensus on turning back migrants, Italian officials told The Journal that they wouldn’t agree to taking back asylum seekers from Germany. A spokesman for Ms. Merkel confirmed talks about a possible summit of the leaders but gave no details about what was being discussed. Like Mr. Seehofer’s CSU, leaders of Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union will meet on Monday to prepare their response. In an op-ed for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and several newspaper interviews over the weekend, Mr. Seehofer sounded slightly more conciliatory notes, stressing the urgency of implementing his proposals but also denying he had any intention of toppling the chancellor or ending the alliance between their two parties. “The perception of a loss of control but also abdication of control have strengthened the populist forces in Europe. The political leadership of Germany and Europe must therefore convince citizens that we can manage migration, that we have control over events,” Mr. Seehofer wrote. The governments of Austria and Italy, both of which include hard-line anti-immigration parties, have introduced tough policies aimed at reducing migration. Austrian officials told The Journal that they would welcome the closure of the German border, which they believe is acting as a magnet for asylum seekers. They said they would transfer any migrants rejected by Germany back to the countries where they first applied for asylum, notably Italy and Greece. France is already implementing a similar policy under a bilateral agreement with Italy. In a sign of how inter-EU relationships could quickly become strained, Italian officials have criticized both France’s longstanding policy and Austria’s threats to impose strict controls on the Brenner Pass along the two countries’ Alpine border. —Giovanni Legorano in Rome and Nektaria Stamouli in Athens contributed to this article.<doc-sep>Emmanuele Contini | NurPhoto | Getty Images Chancellor Angela Merkel is at a defining point in her fourth term as German leader amid opposition from her political allies over migration. Her sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) from the Bavarian region, is against Merkel's stance on migration. The allied party wants German police to prevent refugees, who are already registered as asylum seekers in other European countries, to enter Germany. However, Merkel blocked the proposal last week, starting a spat with her interior minister and chairman of the CSU, Horst Seehofer. The clash has escalated into a power struggle between Merkel's party (CDU) and the CSU, which have long been key allies. Together, both parties call themselves The Union and agreed that the CSU operates in Bavaria, while the CDU operates in all the other states. The CSU is traditionally slightly more conservative than Merkel's CDU. "This is definitely the worst crisis she has faced in her 13 years as German chancellor," Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, told CNBC's Annette Weisbach Monday. However, he added that Merkel is likely to stay on as chancellor "because probably even her opponents from the CSU will not dare to bring down the government ... That would hurt the CSU as well and not just Merkel." Merkel is due to meet the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte Monday laying out the foundations for a European-wide agreement over migration later this month. The item will be part of the agenda of a European summit on June 28. According to Schmieding, the CSU is likely to wait 10 days to see what Merkel manages to get from Brussels. The topic of migration has been an Achilles' heel for Merkel. In contrast to many leaders, the German chancellor claimed an "open-door" policy to refugees from war-torn nations in 2015. But rising concerns over widespread terrorist attacks in Europe and discontent over economic conditions have fuelled nationalist movements across the European Union, including Germany. "As Merkel pulled CDU towards the middle in recent years, not least via her stance on refugees, her Bavarian partners from CSU became increasingly nervous, not least as AfD (a far-right German party) began to gain traction in parts of the population," Erik Nielsen, group chief economist at UniCredit said in a note Sunday night.<doc-sep>
The debate over immigration raged on Monday in both the US and Germany. President Donald Trump came under fire from Democrats and Republicans over his immigrant detention policies, after about 2,000 children were separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border. But amid the mounting criticism, the president took time to swipe at Germany’s immigration policies in a series of tweets about German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migration law. “Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!” he wrote. Merkel is currently facing pressure from conservative leaders to restrict migration laws — and if she doesn’t resolve the issue, she could soon lose power. Merkel’s coalition partners handed her an ultimatum on Monday to mend the country’s immigration regulations within the next two weeks. Her main opposition comes from Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, chair of the conservative Christian Social Union party, who has advocated for turning away migrants who have already applied for asylum in another European Union country or were denied entry. After Merkel’s two weeks are up, Seehofer claims he will follow through with a unilateral plan to start rejecting asylum seekers. Back in 2015, Merkel enacted an open-door policy to take in refugees fleeing war from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, reportedly taking in more than 1.4 million people; now about 10,000 immigrants flow in each month. All asylum seekers are allowed to enter the country while they wait for their cases to be reviewed. Germany’s intense immigration debate is an issue for Merkel, who is reaching out to other European leaders to find countries that could potentially take in the migrants Germany turns away. But with the approaching deadline, and Merkel’s power being threatened by government leaders like Seehofer, it’s unclear what her next move will be. Merkel’s power is at stake In February, Germany’s two largest political parties — the center-left Social Democratic Party and the combined center-right Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, and the Christian Social Union, or CSU — renewed a coalition agreement to create a majority party in parliament with Merkel at the helm. The CSU governs the German state Bavaria, while the CDU, which is Merkel’s party, governs the country’s other 15 states. But now that Seehofer’s party and Merkel’s party are fighting over Germany’s immigration laws, it could lead to the dissolution of the coalition and a government breakdown. Germany’s migration issues are also at the heart of a massive immigration debate within the European Union. Early last week, a boat carrying more than 600 African migrants was turned away from Italy, a country that has recently pledged to enforce stricter migration laws; after it was stranded for two days at sea between Malta and the Italian island Sicily, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez allowed it to dock in Valencia on Sunday. And Italy isn’t alone with its recent wave of anti-immigration sentiment. Both Italy and Austria are reportedly critical of Merkel’s open-door policies toward migrants, and support Seehofer’s pursuits to restrict the German border. Although it’s uncertain how Merkel will respond in light of her power struggle, it’s evident that Germany’s immigration issues are fueling a much larger discussion surrounding immigration within Europe.