New legal guide helps migrants in Saxony-Anhalt challenge AfD policies

A group of lawyers have created a guide to help migrants and people with migration backgrounds in Saxony-Anhalt navigate and challenge discriminatory AfD policies.

RAV creates guide for migrants in Saxony-Anhalt

A group of lawyers have created a 250-page guide to help migrants in Germany, namely in Saxony-Anhalt, navigate and challenge policies put forward by the AfD. The far-right party won by a landslide in the state election on September 6, taking 43,8 percent of the vote. 

Among its manifesto promises are a “deportation and migration offensive”, a total ban on immigration from selected non-EU countries; ending the constitutional right to asylum; “compulsory work” for refugees and asylum seekers; restricting naturalisation and denying a German passport to individuals “posing a threat”; and creating a “deportation task force”.

The guide, put together by the organisation Republican Lawyers (RAV), the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, die Linke and Equal Rights Beyond Borders, lays out case studies and legal assessments which should help people defend themselves against discriminatory or unlawful decisions made while the AfD is in power in Saxony-Anhalt.

The website, Recht Solidarisch, on which the guide is available, also lists organisations which people can contact for support in specific situations, for example, how people under threat can prevent the registration office from disclosing their home address in order to protect themselves from threats or physical attacks.

The site also gives guidance on integration course cuts, and clarifies what residents are entitled to depending on statutory obligations, if they receive voluntary integration support and are set to receive a grant which has already been approved.

Die Linke’s Bundestag spokesperson for domestic policy and co-initiator of the project, Clara Bünger said the AfD’s plans had left many in Saxony-Anhalt worried. “We stand by their side, and we are offering very concrete help,” said Bünger, so that they “are not left helpless in the face of the far right’s plans”. 

What happens next in Saxony-Anhalt?

As of September 22, the AfD has been declared the official winner in the state election and looks set to govern in a coalition with the left-wing populist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which won just 5,3 percent of the vote.

But it remains unclear who will serve as state premier. While the BSW initially said it would not support an AfD state premier, AfD representative Tobias Rausch told ARD the BSW had “made public that they believe the speaker of the state parliament should be granted to the strongest political force”. 

Speaking to the public broadcaster, BSW co-chair Amira Mohamed Ali said that as the strongest party, the AfD is entitled to the state premier office as the party would “not stand in the way of this on principle”. 

Which candidate the AfD and BSW will put forward remains unclear; more information is expected to follow when the AfD chooses a candidate on September 29. In the meantime, leader of the outgoing CDU-SPD-FDP coalition Sven Schulze (CDU) continues in the role of state premier.

While the new AfD-dominated parliament is scheduled to convene for the first time on October 6, there is also no deadline for electing a new state premier. This means Schulze could remain in this role, perhaps even after October 6, until a new state premier is confirmed.