Ellis Speagle Reflection for 10/06

Germany deported 81 Afghan men in July who all had criminal convictions and, according to the German government, were legally required to leave. I actually had a hard time seeing the controversy at first. If someone commits a serious crime and has no legal right to stay in Germany, deporting them seems pretty reasonable except Germany sent them abroad. Even though Germany doesn’t recognize Taliban as Afghanistans “legitimate” government, it also factors in torture and executions and other abuses happening there but Germany needed the Taliban to accept these men back, and as a result, Qatar ended up acting as the intermediary for this problem. I still don’t think that means Germany should be forced to keep every Afghan who commits a serious crime but THAT answer feels too easy too. For my previous paper, I wrote about this example how someone is not convicted of rape or murder and the victim exhausted their legal options in Germany so what exactly is Germany supposed to do with that person? I can understand why German voters would be frustrated by an immigration system where deportation exists on paper but becomes almost impossible in reality, but then again, thats how it is for most governmental policies in my experience. There are Afghans who were told they could come to Germany and have instead been stuck waiting as the government processes these dilemas so some of the people were offered protection because their work or circumstances put them at risk after the Taliban takeover. Friedrich Merz did not hide that he wanted a tougher migration policy, still as immigration has become a huge political issue in Germany. Mainstream parties are trying to respond to voters who think migration has gone too far, and I can understand why Merz would not want the AfD to go after the issue but the Afghans who already received promises of immigration existed before that political calculation changed. The two articles also was interesting since both used the word “Afghans” as if it describes one immigration problem. The 81 men on the deportation flight and an Afghan waiting for Germany to honor their promise have to deal with the breakdown in buacracry.  I don’t really have a problem with Germany deciding that its immigration system needs limits and I also don’t think humanitarian protection means Germany loses the ability to deport anyone from Afghanistan forever. Perhaps “legally” it isn’t that simple. but politically it definitely isn’t. If a promise of protection only lasts until migration becomes unpopular, I’m not sure what that promise was worth in the first place. Its the same as “rights.” If a country can take them away at their convience then its not a right, its a privledge. This is what bothers me specifically about how governments can decide who gets what rights and who doesn’t. How are migrants expected to enter a country legally when the barriers of immigration are so complex that it makes it virtually impossble to do so within the bounds of the law.

I was appalled by the findings of the Correctiv investigation. I couldn’t help but hear echoes of the Nazi “Final Solution” in the totalizing rhetoric of Martin Sellner’s “masterplan,” and the proposal to deport presumably non-white Germans en masse recalls Nazi concentration camps. “Non-assimilated” German citizens seemed to be a euphemism for “non-white” citizens, and the notion of deporting legal citizens is particularly disturbing; it creates a hierarchy of citizenship, extending civil rights only to some and evoking systems of racial apartheid. The clandestine nature of the AfD event further supports how the party is attempting to subvert democracy – the exposure of their manipulative techniques, such as using influencers, propaganda, and cynically sowing doubt about the viability of political processes, might decrease their credibility. I wondered what effect the Correctiv investigation had, if any AfD supporters tempered their views or became skeptical of the party, if their enthusiasm about its extreme platform only increased, or if they are already disinclined to trust journalism. Does political polarization in Germany operate similarly to the U.S., in which many people only consume news that reinforces their preexisting beliefs? Does this curb the influence of groundbreaking investigations like Correctiv’s?

I was also shocked by the CDU and Friedrich Merz’s willingness to collaborate with the AfD, even after the revelations of the Correctiv investigation and the party’s inflammatory statements and proposals. The 2025 collaboration on the hardline anti-immigration bill was unprecedented, representing the first occasion since World War II that a piece of legislation passed the Bundestag with the support of right-wing extremists. Although it’s an imperfect analogy, the CDU’s willingness to work with the AfD reminded me once again of how the Weimar Republic enabled the rise of Hitler and refused to ban the Nazi Party, because conservative elites mistakenly believed that they could control the demagogue. How are Germans grappling with the historical parallels between their country’s Nazi past and the current resurgence of the far right? Could the AfD be banned on the grounds of its private statements, or only what it espouses publicly? What do we make of the disparity between its private and public platforms? Would banning the party effectively limit its political power, or would that backfire, turning its leaders into martyrs? 

I was also fascinated by what this week’s readings reveal about German free speech policy. The concept of a court litigating the credibility of a journalistic piece is so alien to me as an American, and seems like it could create avenues for the government to undemocratically prescribe what people read. Shouldn’t the public determine for themselves what news they trust? Then again, Americans are notoriously bad at doing that – the rise of the far right in the U.S. could be at least partially attributed to outlets like Fox News. I wondered how exactly the Berlin court made its determination about the Correctiv piece, especially as the Reuters piece established the validity and rigor of the investigative team’s methods. It’s true that there was a lot of opinionated language in the Correctiv piece, but that doesn’t detract from the impact of its conclusions. I wondered if the writers should have assumed a more neutral tone, letting the damning findings speak for themselves, in order to defuse potential allegations of political bias, or if this would verge on sane-washing a horrifying political development.

In the 258-page manifesto released by the AfD this year lies an unusual vision of artificial intelligence. The far-right party argues that they will embrace the technology and broadly adopt the technology. One of the main motivations they list? Replacing migrants.

The AfD may see this as killing two birds with one stone: embracing AI can make Germany more competitive on the global stage of technology while providing a road to greatly reduce unwanted migration. Experts, however, are much more skeptical about the idea — they note, for instance, that many migrants are employed in service industries, which have thus far proven difficult to replace.

But even if the AfD’s view on AI is just political bluster, the party’s focus on the technology gets one thing right: AI is shaping life for migrants in dramatic ways, and it may continue to do so in unexpected ways. For instance, language barriers, which for a long time have been obstacles to integration and upward mobility for migrants, are greatly reduced by developing AI technologies. Navigating traditionally obscure and difficult government documents may similarly prove significantly easier. 

I propose reporting this story through interviews with staff and clients at the ReDI School of Digital Integration in Berlin, a non-profit that has focused on teaching migrants and refugees important digital skills for their new lives. The unique mission of this school promises an interesting lens through which to tell a complex story. Since an initial wave of coverage at their founding a decade ago, there’s been little to no attention in the English-language media, which leaves important questions unanswered. How is AI changing how ReDI teaches skills to migrants? Are the skills being taught changing? And is AI actually making life easier for migrants, or is it complicating their experiences in unforeseen ways?

To my knowledge, no outlet has yet covered this unfolding story of migration and AI in Germany. The reporting on the AfD’s manifesto has focused largely on its social and political vision for Germany, with little attention to the technological implications. Those who have reported on the connections between the AfD and AI have written primarily on how deepfakes and other technologies were used in elections. And the existing work on the role AI plays in migration has been about the way it factors into decisions about whether to let migrants into the country — little work has been done on what happens to the migrants already living in Germany.

I see several other paths, should my story about ReDI not work out. I plan to interview union leaders for their thoughts on the AfD’s proposal — what do they think are the ramifications of such policy, and how do they feel about it? Young migrants are also an interesting population — is AI changing what kind of jobs they feel confident in? Regardless of the eventual angle, I think that the way AI is shaping life for migrants in Germany is an important one that is yet to be told. 

Money sent home by migrants to low- and middle-income countries has nearly doubled in dollar terms between 2015 and 2025, according to a new United Nations report, though the increase is smaller after accounting for inflation. 

The report, which was released on September 14 by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, found that the transfers, known as remittances, reached a value of $728.6 billion in 2025. This is an increase of about 94% from $375.6 billion in 2016, though an inflation adjustment using the U.S. Consumer Price Index puts the increase at about 45%.

“This is a huge number, but it isn’t surprising,” wrote Samuel Huckstep, a research analyst at the Center for Global Development, in response to a request for comment. “The numbers have been gradually growing year on year: even during Covid-19 remittance flows were quite robust to the shock.”

Families receiving remittances spend that money on a variety of critical needs, from consumer goods to long-term investments, noted Gaurav Khanna, an economist at the University of California San Diego. The benefits can even spill over: A study he co-authored, published in April, found that increased earning power for migrant workers from the Philippines resulted in long-term gains in income and education for entire communities. 

“What we’re trying to argue is that if the migrants are sending the money back home, then the gains can actually be spread much more widely than just their families,” said Khanna in an interview.

These latest findings also come at a time when some historically migrant-friendly governments are souring on immigration. Immigration judges in the United States, for instance, have ordered the removal of more than 440,000 people seeking asylum in President Donald Trump’s first 19 months back in office, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Germany, another popular destination for migrants, recently extended immigration controls at its land borders until March 2027. 

“In response, we have not seen a major reduction in remittance flows,” said the report’s lead author Pedro de Vasconcelos at a press conference, referring to restrictive migration policies. “There’s always a delay, also, that you need to take into account.” He further noted that the report does not include the most recent data on remittances (the report does not include data from 2026). 

Despite these headwinds against immigration, remittances are likely here to stay, said Patricia Fernández-Kelly, a sociologist at Princeton who studies global migration. 

“I’m pretty sure that remittances will continue to be a very important source of revenue in some of these countries,” she said in an interview.

Some researchers also say that governments can have an important role in improving the economic impact of remittances. Huckstep says that in particular, destination countries for migrants can create significant benefits for migrants and their families by reforming migration policy.

“Currently this isn’t even a factor, but the potential is massive,” wrote Huckstep.

Correctiv’s report on a secret meeting of far-right individuals to discuss “remigration” was interesting in both how the piece came about (undercover reporting that was possible due to a concerted team effort and a little bit of luck) and how the piece was presented (as a play). I find the content of the report to be surprising in its level of detail, but the effort to “reclaim” the country itself is sadly a familiar playbook at this point, at least for Americans under the Trump administration. I think the piece also gives a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes of wealthy people’s political decision-making, where they may profess certain values in public but want to support potentially unpopular views through discrete uses of their money.

I was also interested in the InfoMigrants piece and the tensions that exist in what AfD wants. For instance, the piece notes that they want skilled workers, though they also want stricter requirements for non-EU skilled workers. I wonder, however, whether they would even have the talent necessary for some of their jobs if they are being so restrictive. The BBC noted in March that Germany faces a shortage of skilled workers. There are also several planks that closely parallel U.S. deportation policy. For instance, the piece notes that migrants who have been found to be a danger in some way will be deported — though as we’ve seen in the United States, immigration enforcement can and do deport individuals with no criminal record, and there’s often no means of redress.

The CNN piece notes that even with specific state victories, the AfD cannot necessarily implement all of its extreme measures. However, the Courthouse News Service piece illustrates how their power can still be felt, as politicians like Friedrich Merz try to compromise with the far-right in order to out-maneuver them. The issue with this approach is that it’s hard to stay moderate in trying to out-right the right while also appealing to the extremist voter base, and you risk permanently alienating a moderate voter base. I wonder now, given the AfD’s victories in recent state-elections, whether there will be more pressure placed on the Brandmauer. In some instances where the AfD has such a commanding victory, might some parties not change their minds about working with them so they can deliver on common policies?

Something that was surprising to me was how, per The Economist piece, the AfD is actually generally unpopular among young people, and the party performs the best with voters in the 40-60 age range. Given all the headlines about youth radicalization in Germany, I would have thought the vote share among young people to be much higher, though I suppose the numbers may look different in a decade or so as the teenagers being radicalized now eventually grow old enough to vote in these elections.

Since learning more about Ukrainian refugees in Germany—the country’s largest refugee population—I have become interested in the question of staying versus returning to Ukraine and the human stories behind displacement. The war has now lasted more than four years, and, as Deb mentioned in class, many Ukrainians who initially expected to return home have found that they cannot. What was imagined as a temporary displacement has increasingly become a long-term reality.

I am interested in what that prolonged displacement has done to the Ukrainian community in Berlin where Ukrainians have developed their own networks of mutual support, activism, and community. Organizations such as Vitsche keep the human cost of the war visible while maintaining networks of Ukrainian activists and creating spaces where displaced Ukrainians can find community and belonging. I would like to look within the organizations themselves and report on the people inside these networks, including Ukrainians who arrived as refugees and have since become translators, organizers, advocates, hosts, patient carers, or informal guides for people who arrived after them.

This raises a question I would like to investigate on the ground: What happens when refugees who expected to return home begin building a life and becoming necessary to a community in the place where they sought temporary refuge? Does helping other Ukrainians change how they understand Berlin, Germany, and the possibility of returning to Ukraine? I do not want to assume that staying versus returning is the central conflict for every person I meet; but, I do want to ask this question to explore individuals’ stories.

I would structure the reporting around three core groups of people and three different sites, with each site representing a distinct part of Berlin’s Ukrainian community and a different form of refugee-to-refugee assistance. I want to understand which Ukrainians are helping which other Ukrainians, what kind of help they provide, and what these relationships reveal about how a displaced community has built its own support system.

I would identify three reporting locations that provide an inside view of Ukrainian refugees helping one another and contact each location before arriving in Berlin. One might be a Ukrainian community or mutual-aid space where newly arrived families seek help with housing, benefits, schools, documents, or German bureaucracy. Another could involve medical or social-service assistance. Ukraine-Hilfe Berlin, for example, has volunteers who help wounded Ukrainians navigate German institutions and could potentially lead me to someone with firsthand experience of both displacement and caregiving. A third could be a youth, student, activist, or cultural community where support is less formal and depends on peer networks.

To find the strongest stories, I have reached out to Ukrainian classmates and acquaintances before the trip and asked whether they know Ukrainians in Berlin who arrived after 2022 and now help newer arrivals. I would like to enter these communities through personal connections before directly reaching out to each organization for site visits and interviews. Ideally, I would arrive with three potential characters and three locations, while remaining open to other ideas for strong stories that align with my topic.

The larger story might be about how Ukrainians in Berlin have moved from needing help to helping others—and how that evolution is shifting their understanding of home.

Germany’s Brandmauer, the informal pact among mainstream parties never to govern with the AfD, assumes that voters and parties want the same thing. That assumption is now in doubt. With the AfD polling at or near the top nationally and winning historic results in eastern state elections, I keep returning to how can the firewall sustain itself if voters are choosing the party it was built against? The firewall may survive formally while eroding in practice.

German migration policy has changed in ways that differ by group, while the AfD has pressed for stricter limits. Ukrainians arriving after April 1, 2025 receive the lower asylum-seeker benefit rate instead of Bürgergeld, and unlike other groups they were not required to enroll in German language classes. Germany dismantled its federal resettlement program for Afghans in and a German court later ruled that the 2023 commitment to one Afghan family was legally binding. For Syrians, the protection rate fell drastically, family reunification for subsidiary-protection holders was dismantled until 2027, and deportations resumed in December 2025. Russians and the Russlanddeutsche have not been the target of comparable measures, and the AfD’s platform calls for lifting Russia sanctions and offering free Russian-language instruction. This complicates what each migrant and refugee group is experiencing amid ongoing political tensions shaking the country at large.

Correctiv’s 2024 report on a secret meeting of far-right extremists shows what is at stake. According to Correctiv, Martin Sellner identified asylum seekers, non-Germans with residency rights, and “non-assimilated” German citizens as targets of his “remigration” concept, with the last group presenting the greatest “challenge.” This means the proposal would divide German residents into those who could live peacefully in Germany and those for whom that basic right would no longer apply. The question reported from the meeting is eerie; “How can a homogeneous ethnic community be achieved in Germany?”

I do not know whether every part of the Correctiv reporting is entirely accurate. What unsettles me is the legal dispute that followed. The ruling by a Berlin court against Correctiv on three specific statements concerning AfD politician Gerrit Huy complicates the story’s legitimacy after it generated nationwide protests and intense political division. For journalism, scrutiny is necessary. However, it also raises a difficult question: how should journalists investigate extremist threats when the reporting itself becomes part of the political battle?

Despite the story’s traction, the AfD has continued to gain electoral support. The CDU under Chancellor Friedrich Merz has also accepted AfD votes on migration legislation, testing the firewall without formally governing with the party. I wonder how exactly you reconcile public opinion and electoral politics with Germany’s historical commitment to keeping far-right extremism out of government?

I also wonder what this means beyond Germany. France is also approaching its 2027 presidential election amid growing support for the far right, while the U.S. is experiencing its own intensified immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. These raise a broader question: what happens to migration and refugee policy when populist parties gain enough public support to require mainstream parties to respond and what can actually be done about this?

There are a couple of ideas which I’d like to try and follow through on. Firstly, I went down a rabbit hole after looking into Vitsche, a Berlin-based Ukrainian activism NGO. Their members are very active on social media and film a lot of their protests and outreach in a very cinematic way. I contacted a couple of the primary members on Instagram and have arranged to chat with the women who are the face of the movement. I’d like to learn more about the NGO, but more specifically the individuals who make it successful through influencing on social media. I have many questions, one of which is whether they receive any pushback from Russian representatives. I wonder if they’ve been contacted or warned in any way about the work they’re doing or if their safety is ever at risk. I imagine each of them has very powerful and moving stories, and I’d be interested in profiling one of them as well. This type of reporting would require me to visit their hub and watch them in action in Berlin.

In that same regard, finding and interviewing Russian journalists in Berlin who have either fled Russia or been exiled from it. I want to know how Russian journalists are being persecuted and if they can truly find refuge even once outside Russia. An incredibly pressing question which I have is what the hell is going on in Russia. At the same time, I don’t know how feasible or safe it would be to pursue a story like this, but the prospect of it does intrigue me.

Another potential topic to pursue, which is something that Deb spoke about in class and interested me immensely, is the divorce rates among Ukrainian couples. Ukraine has the biggest number of women in the military, and divorce rates have skyrocketed. As Deb suggests, the men on the front lines are meeting women on the front lines. A way of pursuing this story would be to find a couple who have had this happen to them, and interview them about their story and what the divorce process looked like. Again, I’m unsure how difficult it would be to find a couple who met on the front lines; I don’t know how common it has been for military couples to flee to Berlin. Another topic that we learned in class is that Germans are preparing for a war in 2030. I’d like to speak to people about what this preparation looks like, and what ignited it. Additionally, I’d want to know how widely recognised this is, and if the average person has the same thought in common to prepare for war or if it’s a few minority individuals.

Something which keeps popping up in my news feeds, on my social media and in my email inbox is how Afghan women are currently being oppressed by the Taliban. They pretty much cease to exist; they are barely allowed to breathe in Afghanistan at the moment — it’s so surreal that it’s almost unreal. I cannot believe they haven’t yet been rescued. We learn about what’s happening to them in the media, yet their situation persists. Considering the articles from last week about Germany’s admission schemes being revoked in 2025 and then re-implemented again a year later, I wonder how many Afghan women have been trapped because of this? I wonder if there’s a way to find out? I also wonder if there are any women who made the cut before the programme was revoked but have lost contact with family back home?

This is my initial brainstorm. I imagine that once we land in Berlin and I get talking to people, I’ll receive on-the-ground information or a window into a more refined story. But the above are a few angles I could take; I’ll continue to email and make contact up until we leave.

by Devon Williams

These readings were a fascinating look not only into the political landscape and growing polarization within Germany and the AfD, but also into the nature of journalism exposing such politics. When a paper like Correctiv is able to show the reality of partisan extremism to the public, the response is swift and radical in the populous with protests, millions of clicks and shares, and commentary from other parties. Yet later, calls of false news or dramatization of the story also surface, and the story that shook the country is apparently now “pulled out of thin air.” I was left confused, unsure what to believe of this story after its criticisms– but also the strength of this counterargument makes me feel as though they are afraid of what they know to be the truth, even if they won’t reveal this to the public.

The “Secret Plan Against Germany” felt at first like the kind of investigation that should fundamentally change this party’s standing in the public eye, as the discussion of “remigration” for citizens and non-citizens alike and cancelling of passports for dual citizens should be eye-opening for anyone. Their methods as well, completely covert and spurred on by leaked invitations and supported by hidden cameras and planted photographers, both corroborated the honesty of this meeting the politicians believed they were having in secret, but also called into question the journalistic ethics of concealed truth and identity within reporting. Is it worth it to cross this boundary in order to achieve such a landmark story? When is it okay to break that rule of integrity? Still, this story would not have been made possible without it, and news of journalistic curiosity could have stopped the meeting from occurring altogether.

The reading about the AfD’s electoral growth also called into question the role of polarization in the country’s political landscape. The Economist made clear that struggling parts of the Ruhr are increasing support of the AfD substantially while wealthy and educated areas saw more minimal change in performance. Like the US with MAGA, Germany is “growing apart” through economic decline, fear of immigration, and distrust of established parties creating a pessimistic view of the future allowed polarization to grow to such an extent that the AfD’s message no longer sounds like the dogwhistle that it is.

It seems that the AfD does not have to govern to change German politics (already made impossible by their institutionalized “firewall” against far-right extremists), rather it can put pressure on mainstream politicians to adopt stricter immigration policy and other issues to compete for these same voters. The Economist described this as a recurring event with both the SPD in the Ruhr and CDU politicians generally, showing the weakening of this “firewall” even if it can never fully fall.

In this way, these readings called into question for me the power and role of journalism in divided countries. Correctiv revealed powerful information about an extremist party gaining support, yet it cannot stop this support or the allegations that this truth is a falsehood just because it is contrary to a polarizing party. It can, however, expose the reality of these entities to the public and hope they can mobilize themselves through voting, protests, social media, and at minimum ensure voters have all the information possible when deciding the fate of their country.

The Correctiv’s story on “A Secret Plan Against Germany’ was shocking. As many of the articles following this story clarify, it demonstrated ideologies comparable to Nazi Germany. What was discussed about ‘re-migration’ and a masterplan for forced deportations would completely dismantle the protective firewall or Brandmauer put in place to stop Germany from ever returning to that oppressive, tyrannical place. If one were to take the story at face value, then the AfD would surely be banned. Although the story had a large impact on public opinion and raised awareness in Germany, it is surprising that it did not result in the removal of the AfD’s eligibility. The meeting, how it takes place in a hotel, and how people were invited, is all incredibly suspicious. I thought it was interesting how Correctiv laid the story out in Acts like a play, which I felt slightly diminished the story’s reliability.

However, the Reuter’s article that supported the story and explained the complicated process the reporters underwent, alleviated my skepticism. It was reassuring to learn what the reporters thought about what they had found, “We knew the material was explosive,” one woman quotes. A couple of questions I had about the process of investigation are as follows: Why would the AfD send Correctiv an invitation? And if they didn’t, then who did? I’ve always been taught to declare when something is on the record, and this entire investigation happened undercover, off the record, so I wonder, what are the legal and ethical implications of this type of journalism? Does it not matter how the information is collected when the stakes are this high, when Germany is under threat? The Brussels Signal appears to be a right-wing outlet with the way it spoke about Correctiv having fabricated the story. It sounds a little bit like Trump’s response to call demonising truths about himself “fake news” a lot of the time. It is disappointing that Correctiv’s impactful revelation, a story that took months to report and prepare, can be dismantled by one Brussels Signal article claiming it was completely fabricated. I can see how it might be difficult for a German citizen, or anyone for that matter, to know what to believe when there are so many contrasting articles. I suppose one would choose to believe whatever their personal values align with.

The main points demonstrated by these articles regardless of reliability, is how catastrophic the AfD would be for migrants, asylum seekers and refugees if they came into power. I’m surprised that there aren’t more significant efforts to stop them considering the similarities between the AfD and Nazi Germany. On a slightly more recent note, I’ve just seen in the news that Friedrich Merz landed in Kyiv upon giving military support and funding to Ukraine – and “Urging Putin To End War” as per Al Jazeera. I wonder if this will result in any repercussions for Germany, by Russia? This stance taken by Merz feels very different to the Courthouse News Service article about him wanting to insert tougher immigration policies and failing. I wonder what changed?