{"id":1023,"date":"2026-10-12T16:48:49","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T20:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn449-f26\/?p=1023"},"modified":"2026-10-12T16:48:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T20:48:49","slug":"germany-got-tougher-on-migration-the-afd-kept-growing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn449-f26\/germany-got-tougher-on-migration-the-afd-kept-growing\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany got tougher on migration. The AfD kept growing."},"content":{"rendered":"

On Oct. 6, Tobias Rausch of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was elected president<\/a> of Saxony-Anhalt\u2019s state parliament, the first time a member of the party has led a German state legislature. He received 48 votes in a secret ballot<\/a>, four more than the AfD and the populist Alliance for Social Justice and Economic Reason (BSW) hold together.<\/p>\n

Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil of the Social Democrats called the vote<\/a> a Tabubruch<\/em>, or \u201ctaboo breach.\u201d Sven Schulze, the state\u2019s minister-president and a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), rejected suggestions that the extra votes came from his party. The AfD\u2019s lead candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, plans to run<\/a> for Schulze\u2019s office in December.<\/p>\n

The vote comes as Germany\u2019s governing parties have adopted increasingly stringent migration measures, turning back asylum seekers at the border<\/a>, suspending family reunification for some refugees<\/a>, and lengthening the path to citizenship<\/a>. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has argued that acting on migration<\/a> will help counter the far right\u2019s growing appeal. The AfD\u2019s support has risen anyway. The party won 20.8% of the vote<\/a> in the February 2025 federal election and now averages about 28% in national polls, roughly eight points ahead of Merz\u2019s CDU.<\/p>\n

For the roughly 1.3 million Ukrainians living in Germany<\/a>, the policy shift has already arrived. In November 2025, the federal cabinet approved a bill<\/a> to move Ukrainians who arrived after April 1, 2025, from B\u00fcrgergeld<\/em> (Citizen\u2019s Allowance, Germany\u2019s standard welfare benefit) to the lower payments given to asylum seekers. In April, a Unity Hub opened in Berlin<\/a>, funded by Germany and operated by Ukraine, that offers services to Ukrainians and is partly intended to encourage returns. Merz called the return of fighting-age men<\/a> \u201cessential to ensure Ukraine\u2019s ability to defend itself, its social cohesion and reconstruction.\u201d And in July, the European Union stopped automatically granting protection<\/a> to newly arriving Ukrainian men who have not met their military obligations.<\/p>\n

Anastasiia Yakovlieva, 25, who has lived in Germany since fleeing the war in Ukraine in 2022, said the dean of her Ukrainian university had attended a conference in Berlin where officials were \u201calready organizing special centers for reintegration of Ukrainians back to Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yakovlieva said that Germany seems to be \u201cworking in both directions.\u201d The country has also made it easier for Ukrainians to stay, she said, including by renewing their protection each year, allowing them to exchange Ukrainian driver\u2019s licenses, simplifying recognition of Ukrainian degrees, and offering German classes.<\/p>\n

Jan-Werner M\u00fcller, a political theorist and professor of politics at Princeton University, said that the AfD has come to \u201cown\u201d migration as an issue. Other German parties, he said, helped by making migration a central topic of debate, which lent legitimacy to far-right framings. The AfD\u2019s perceived competence on migration, he said, has spilled over into other areas such as the economy.<\/p>\n

M\u00fcller said the federal government has largely addressed the AfD\u2019s complaints about migration, yet the party continues to grow partly because it serves as a vessel for broader discontent. As its name suggests, he said, it provides voters an \u201calternative\u201d \u2013 one that can channel general grievances into anti-migration sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo far-right populist has ever run out of scapegoats,\u201d M\u00fcller said.<\/p>\n

The AfD has directed some of that rhetoric at Ukrainians. Siegmund said during the Saxony-Anhalt campaign<\/a> that \u201cremigration,\u201d a term the AfD uses for mass deportation, should apply to anyone who does not contribute to society, and included Ukrainian refugees without jobs. The AfD\u2019s Saxony-Anhalt platform called for ending war-refugee status for Ukrainians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

M\u00fcller said the AfD often frames such proposals through \u201cethnopluralism,\u201d the idea that different ethnic and cultural groups should live in their own distinct regions rather than in multicultural societies. The framing, he said, allows the party to present deportation as being in migrants\u2019 own interest.<\/p>\n

Ukraine has also featured in right-wing populist campaigns elsewhere in Europe. In Hungary, former Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n routinely attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> during his reelection campaign before losing April\u2019s election, ending 16 years in power. Sofiia Patkanovtsiy, a Princeton University sophomore from Uzhhorod, a Ukrainian city near the Hungarian border, said \u201cour country and our people were definitely a big thing in the agendas during the [Hungarian] election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Employment data complicate the far-right claim that Ukrainian refugees do not contribute, though the data show a gap. Nearly 40% of Ukrainian nationals in Germany were employed<\/a> in June 2026, with the number growing consistently. Researchers have cited<\/a> language barriers, a lack of childcare and slow recognition of foreign qualifications.<\/p>\n

Yakovlieva said she has seen those barriers firsthand. Her mother, who holds a finance degree from a Ukrainian university, completed a months-long training course recommended by a German job center but was turned down for a kindergarten assistant job because she lacked the required degree.<\/p>\n

\u201cUkrainians are people that are really willing to learn and to practice what they used to practice in Ukraine, just to have their jobs back,\u201d Yakovlieva said. \u201cSometimes it is just frustrating for people who get refused to even get to an interview.\u201d A 2025 survey by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) found that 94% of Ukrainian refugees<\/a> in Germany who were not employed said they wanted to work.<\/p>\n

Yakovlieva noted that Germany may have a longer-term incentive to keep refugees in the country. \u201cGermany is getting older,\u201d she said. \u201cThey need the labor power here.\u201d The German workforce is projected to decrease<\/a> by 4.7% in the next two decades.<\/p>\n

Ukrainians are not the only group facing the shift. Germany has resumed deportations to Syria<\/a> and Afghanistan<\/a>, and the federal migration office has revoked protection<\/a> from a growing share of Syrians whose cases it reviews.<\/p>\n

Whether Germany\u2019s stricter approach will slow the AfD remains uncertain. Siegmund needs 42 votes to become minister-president<\/a> in Saxony-Anhalt; the AfD holds 39 of the state parliament\u2019s 83 seats.<\/p>\n

For Yakovlieva, the policy debate does not change what she would need to return to Ukraine: an improvement in \u201cthe security situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the war ends, there is going to be a couple years where the situation in Ukraine is going to be really tough,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause of the mental health crisis, the financial crisis in Ukraine, and the whole rebuilding process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Oct. 6, Tobias Rausch of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was elected president of Saxony-Anhalt\u2019s state parliament, the first time a member of the party has led a German state legislature. He received 48 votes in a secret ballot, four more than the AfD and the populist Alliance for Social Justice and Economic<\/p>\n

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