More than 1,300 pages of internal Ministry of the Interior documents show that the government’s practice of refusing asylum‑seekers at the borders is almost untenable from a legal standpoint-even in the eyes of its own civil servants. Since 2024, ministry staff have repeatedly voiced concerns about such a step.
Der Spiegel obtained the files under the Freedom of Information Act. The B‑2 department, which handles “leadership and operational matters of the Federal Police” recorded on 28 August 2024 that directly turning back asylum seekers, as the opposition had called for, would create “significant legal and political risks”. At that time Nancy Faeser of the SPD was Interior Minister.
A briefing note for Faeser dated 9 September 2024, written by a civil servant who would later be promoted to head the migration department under Alexander Dobrindt, described the policy as “potentially toxic” and “unfit for European law”. It warned that Germany would need to officially declare that public order or internal security were severely threatened in order to justify the measure.
Another ministry memo from the same period noted that proving the alleged “major crisis” was the responsibility of states and municipalities. “Such data do not exist at present, neither for accommodation conditions nor for integration efforts, where offerings have been massively expanded, nor for kindergartens, schools, medical care, police, and the like”.
When the civil State Secretary Bernd Krösser asked staff in late January 2025 to assess the likelihood that the border practice would be halted by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the answer was that it was not entirely unlikely but would require at least nine months. Krösser remarked that the delay suggested a longer timeframe than previously assumed, a point that could be used to strengthen the position of those who believe the practice would have no standing before the ECJ. Yet he was still in favor, arguing that the measure is “simple because it takes time to overturn it and during that time it works in practice”.
In early March 2025, after the Union’s electoral success, the EU‑law department drafted another comprehensive note on the legal situation. The doubts whether Germany could circumvent EU law to refuse asylum seekers remained unchanged. The files state that no member state has ever succeeded in doing so before the European Court of Justice.
On 7 May 2025, the new Interior Minister, Alexander Dobrindt, signed an order to the Federal Police that now allows the refusal of entry for protection seekers. Since then, the ministry has denied the entry of an average of 113 people per month despite their asylum applications.
