Germany’s Deportation of an Afghan Without Criminal Record Sets a New Precedent

In August 2024, Germany became the first European country to deport Afghan nationals to Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover. The deportation process was facilitated by Qatar. This happened after Germany’s “Traffic Light Coalition” government decided to change the rules to deport foreign nationals found guilty of serious crimes, a policy shift motivated by a deadly knife attack on a police officer in Mannheim.

At the time, Germany’s then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Germany would not tolerate religious extremists or criminals who exploit the country’s laws protecting refugees. He added, “Such criminals should be deported even if they come from Syria and Afghanistan. Serious criminals and terrorists have no place here. In such cases the security interests of Germany outweigh the perpetrator’s interests in protection.” 

In the first deportation, 28 Afghan nationals with criminal records were deported to Afghanistan. Since then Germany has expedited its deportation process – and expanded the scope beyond “criminals and terrorists.”

Last week, Germany deported an Afghan national without a criminal record for the first time since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. The Afghan national had attempted to settle in another European country but was found to be illegally living there. He was transferred back to Germany and deported to Afghanistan by plane with 30 other deportees; all of the other deportees had criminal convictions. 

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said that the man had become eligible for deportation after his ⁠asylum claim was denied. The minister told journalists, according to Deutsche Welle’s summary, that “anyone who has gone through an asylum process resulting in a rejection is therefore required to leave the country and must expect deportation if they do not depart voluntarily.” He called it a “shift in migration policy” marked by “control, a clear course, and a firm stance.” However, the deportation of an Afghan national without a criminal record sparked strong opposition from human rights groups.

When the deportation occurred, around 260 people attended a protest at the airport’s departure gate. Luca Müller, the spokesperson for the group behind the demonstration, argued that Germany’s government was “supporting the Islamist Taliban through its deals.” Both the political opposition and human rights organizations have accused the German government of legitimizing the de facto Taliban rule in Afghanistan in the name of facilitating deportations.

Responding to similar accusations in Germany’s Parliament from The Greens, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz rejected criticism that Germany’s engagement with the Taliban amounts to normalizing relations with them. He said that “any cooperation is limited to technical matters and serves Germany’s national interests.” He further stressed that “we are not normalizing this regime.” 

However, Merz also highlighted that “diplomatic relations exist between states, not between governments. And there have always been diplomatic relations with Afghanistan.”

In July 2025, the German government announced that it had permitted two Taliban envoys to enter Germany in order to facilitate the deportation of Afghan nationals with criminal records. This was the first time that Taliban officials were allowed to enter any major Western country since the group’s forceful takeover of Kabul in August 2021. A year after the Taliban officials’ arrival in Germany, the group’s representatives now head both the Afghan Consulate General in Bonn and the Afghan embassy in Berlin, where four new Taliban envoys arrived this year, bringing the total number to six.

After Germany’s move to engage directly with the Taliban, the European Union followed suit. In October 2025, the EU confirmed that it was engaging with the de facto regime in Kabul as part of its efforts to increase deportations of failed asylum seekers from Europe. Markus Lammert, a spokesman for the EU’s executive, said at the time that the European Commission had “initiated exploratory contacts at the technical level with the de facto authorities in Afghanistan.” 

The move came after a majority of the EU member states urged Brussels to reach out to the Taliban in Afghanistan. In a letter initiated by Belgium, 20 EU member states called on the European Commission to take action in order to enable both voluntary and involuntary deportation of Afghans with no legal right to stay in Europe. As per EU data, the member states of the Union received about 1 million asylum applications from Afghan nationals between 2013 and 2024, out of which about half have been approved.

Following last year’s initial contact with the Taliban, in June 2026, the EU hosted Taliban officials for the highest-level contacts between the two since the summer of 2021. The Belgian government granted the Taliban officials one-day visas for talks on the deportation of Afghans whose asylum applications were rejected within the member states of the Union. 

The European Commission confirmed that the exchange between the Taliban delegation and the bloc’s member states was held at a technical level and focused on the deportation of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan. The Commission also confirmed that representatives from 15, out of a total 27, member states participated in the talks. 

Abdul Qahar Balkhi, who led the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs delegation, said that both sides talked about “restarting broad-range consular services for Afghans in [the] EU zone, including [the] need for trust-building measures, consular presence and dignified return process.”

Like the developments in Germany, the EU’s move has also been criticized by human rights groups. Amnesty International urged the EU and member states to withdraw their Afghanistan deportation plans and put an end to any cooperation with the Taliban. Amnesty further highlighted that Afghanistan cannot be considered safe for return, and that deportation of Afghans would put their lives at risk. Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, said that “any EU engagement on deportations to Afghanistan is reckless, dangerous, and ignores the EU’s own legal obligations.”

Since the Taliban’s takeover, deportation has remained a controversial topic due to concerns about human rights and the treatment of returnees. Nevertheless, Germany has returned over 200 people to Afghanistan since 2024. Amnesty International reported that at least one has been killed following deportation. 

The deportation of an Afghan national without any criminal record sets a new precedent for Germany. That raises serious concerns among the almost 450,000 individuals of Afghan origin who currently live in Germany, many of whom arrived as refugees.