EU and USA Citizens facing immediate, politically motivated, deportation from Germany
We are four activists—three EU citizens and one US American citizen—facing deportation from Germany, ordered to leave by April 21, 2025.
For the sole reason of protesting Germany’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine, Berlin's Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport (SenInnSport) has ordered our expulsion, arbitrarily accusing us of "antisemitism" and supporting "terrorist organisations" referring to Haraket al-Muqawameh al-Islamiyyeh (Islamic Resistance Movement) or Hamas, as well as "its front organisations in Germany and Europe". Not one of us has a criminal record.
This is not justice: The Landesamt für Einwanderung (LEA) initially refused the order—recognising its lack of legal basis—but was forced to comply under political pressure from SenInnSport. The deportation orders were signed by LEA Director Engelhard Mazanke.
This is not the first instance of Germany weaponising migration law. Since October 2023, the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has unlawfully frozen the processing of all asylum-seekers from Gaza, claiming “the current events [in Gaza] are consistently unclear and difficult to assess”—directly contradicting the German courts who have explicitly stated: there is a direct threat to life to anyone in Gaza. Meanwhile, anti-migrant and anti-Arab racist propaganda in the media manufactures consent for targeted deportations—predominantly of Palestinians.
Rampant unrestrained police violence goes hand in hand with this repressive use of immigration law to silence pro-Palestinian voices and political dissent. Arbitrary arrests made at protests, combined with false charges, are used as pretexts to justify extrajudicial deportation measures, circumventing any notion of independent judicial process and the rule of law.
Germany's revocation of one student visa and three EU citizens right to move within the EU is an unprecedented escalation with dire implications. This parallels the Trump administration using deportation as a method of repression against US residents exercising their right to freedom of speech. Greece is attempting similar measures against 9 EU and UK activists, against whom all criminal charges have been dropped. These escalations should alarm movements confronting state violence everywhere.
Our deportation is a political act—an attempt to intimidate an entire movement. By stripping us of our freedom of movement, Germany intensifies its repression of pro-Palestinian voices, disproportionately targeting Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab communities.
In the deportation documents, the LEA opens with a statement depicting the events of October 7th through Germany's Staatsräson—a doctrine that enshrines unconditional support for Israel, no matter its systematic human rights abuses and war crimes. This same Staatsräson has been used to justify Germany’s complicity in the ongoing genocide, while systematically suppressing criticism of Israel’s 77-year settler-colonial project, ethnic cleansing, and the current mass slaughter, displacement, and starvation of Palestinians.
We categorically condemn Germany's complicity in genocide and reject these unlawful measures. With our legal team, we will fight this deportation all the way to the highest courts. We stand in solidarity with all those—in Germany and globally—facing persecution for standing on the right side of history.
From Gaza to Berlin, the struggle continues. No deportation will stop us.
Within our lifetime, Palestine will be free!
Cooper Longbottom, Roberta Murray, Shane O'Brien, Kasia Wlaszczyk
Contact: stoppoliticaldeportations@pm.me
People in German departments or offices can be incredibly dull, with a brutal non-logic they are confident to effortlessly push through, even though there is no sensibility or justice to it. And the media on this issue have been as stupid and close-minded as on almost nothing else (usually one can find a decent balance). Just since half a year or so has there been an acknowledgement of the horrors committed to countless civilians in Gaza, but the beginning rhetoric and posturing is likely still decisive in most officials' heads.