Germany’s Leading Candidate Calls for Permanent Border Checks
- CDU’s Merz says existing migration rules are ‘dysfunctional’
- Series of deadly attacks stoked debate about domestic security
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Friedrich Merz, the conservative front-runner in the race for Germany’s chancellorship, called for a radical overhaul of the country’s migration policy including permanent border checks. The comments come after an asylum seeker from Afghanistan was taken into custody over a fatal stabbing of a two-year-old child and a man in a park on Wednesday.
If elected chancellor in February, “there will be a de facto ban on entry into the Federal Republic of Germany for anyone who does not have valid entry documents or who make use of European freedom of movement,” Merz told reporters in Berlin on Thursday. “This also applies expressly to persons with a right to protection.”