In April 2015, the European refugee crisis has reached a new scale. The death of 900 people in only one day has pressured the political elite to act quickly and produce viable solutions – if one believes their press officers. In reality, in terms of asylum laws and deportation practices, no significant changes have been implemented.

Germany is particularly innovative in the field of deportation. Refugees without papers – people of “unclear citizenship” – are sent to foreign embassies for identification. The embassy staff is granted, by the German government, the authority to determine a person’s identity and, based on that, to give a green light for deportation. The methods used to determine a person’s identity are dubious, intransparent and sometimes openly racist: even the physical appearance and the shape of one’s head are taken into account to identify a person’s nationality. Additionally, Germany gives financial incentives to the embassies to collaborate and to issue “travel certificates” to refugees without papers. Based on internal documents, interviews with deportees and NGOs, I will present evidence of how Germany is ‘Nigerianizing’ refugees and deporting them to Nigeria, using its good relationship to the West African state.

Against this and other measures, resistance has been sparked. In 2012, the Refugee Movement emerged and has been occupying government buildings and public places, organizing demonstrations, resisting police actions and defying asylum regulations. Not only has the movement successfully pressured the political establishment to implement parts of their political demands, it also has renewed the radical Left in the country. Asylum politics have become a major line of struggle, with solidarity and mobilization levels higher than in almost any other political field.

I will present milestones of the struggle, with video footage from riots and occupations.
Daniel Mützel is a journalist, screenwriter and activist. He has been involved in different movements and solidarity networks like Occupy, Autonome Universität (AU) and the Berlin Refugee Strike. He is editor of the Berlin edition of Krytyka Polityczna, together with Joulia Strauss.

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