Germany Deports Twenty Convicts to Afghanistan Following Agreement with Taliban

The German federal administration has made a fundamental shift in migration policy by carrying out a direct deportation flight to Afghanistan. The operation involved twenty men who had been convicted of serious criminal offenses and were obligated to leave German territory. The Ministry of the Interior emphasized that the charter flight from Leipzig to Kabul took place based on a newly negotiated agreement with the Taliban movement. This is a significant logistical and political breakthrough, as previous rare attempts at deportations to this country required complex mediation by third-party states, most often Qatar. Authorities in Berlin stress that the priority is citizen safety and the effective enforcement of the right to asylum by removing individuals who threaten public order, whose actions exclude them from international protection. A key element of the federal government's message is that on board the plane was a 22-year-old Afghan, the last of the group of perpetrators of the brutal rape of a minor in Illerkirchberg in 2019. The Minister of Justice for Baden-Württemberg, Marion Gentges, confirmed that with this, all those convicted in this high-profile case have now been expelled from the country. Regional interior ministries from Bavaria and Hesse also reported sending criminals from their states, citing sentences for grievous bodily harm, assaults on officers, and armed robberies. At the same time, the latest data from southern Germany indicates successes in tightening border controls. Bavarian Border Police recorded a clear drop in the number of people attempting to enter Germany illegally in February 2026, attributed to increased intensity of checks and preventive measures. After the Taliban seized power in August 2021, most Western countries halted deportations to Afghanistan due to a lack of diplomatic recognition of the new regime and a drastic deterioration in the human rights situation.Establishing direct technical contacts with the Taliban is controversial, as Berlin officially still does not recognize their government as the legal representation of the state. The group remains internationally isolated, particularly due to drastic restrictions imposed on women and girls. Nevertheless, the Ministry of the Interior argues that the necessity of protecting society from dangerous repeat offenders outweighed diplomatic dilemmas regarding legitimizing the fundamentalists. Representatives from the Christian Democratic opposition from the CSU welcomed these actions, while also calling for a systematic expansion of procedures to other groups of individuals without a right to stay. Experts emphasize that the agreement with Kabul opens the way for regular flights, which could significantly relieve reception centers in the federal states and influence a decline in anti-immigrant sentiment in German society.