section_path: Political positions/Asylum, migration and integration
section_name: Asylum, migration and integration
paragraph_text: Asylum, migration and integration
  
  Merz says he sees limiting irregular migration as the most important task after the 2025 German federal election. Merz criticized Angela Merkel 's policy of open borders during the 2015 European migrant crisis. In 2024, Merz called for asylum seekers to be comprehensively rejected directly at the border. He believes this would send a signal that would lead to less irregular migration. In a 2024 debate about the capacity to accept refugees into Germany, Merz referred to the statement by Saxony 's Minister-President Michael Kretschmer, who had spoken out in favour of accepting a maximum of 60,000–100,000 refugees per year. Merz explained that Kretschmer's statement roughly describes "what we can still achieve today with our integration power".
  
  Merz's CDU seeks to speed up visa processing for foreign skilled workers.
  
  In October 2023, following the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Merz said Germany could not accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza, stating, "We have enough antisemitic young men in the country". In December 2024, Merz called for deportations of illegal Syrian immigrants to Syria and a freeze on new admissions of refugees. As chancellor, he aims to "regularly deport" people to Afghanistan and Syria.
  
  Referring to the fact that around 80 percent of the 200,000 applicants for naturalization in 2024 wanted to keep their first citizenship, Merz intends to abolish the fast naturalization (which made it possible for applicants to obtain German citizenship after living in Germany for three to five years) that the traffic light coalition implemented in 2024. Weeks before the 2025 election, he also advocated for a denaturalization (which would require an amendment to the basic law) in cases in which those with multiple citizenship commit crimes after obtaining German citizenship.
  
  After the January 2025 Aschaffenburg stabbing attack, perpetrated by an Afghan migrant who had no residence permits in Germany (and after a series of similar attacks within a few years), Merz called the EU asylum rules – the Dublin, Schengen, and Eurodac agreements – "visibly dysfunctional", stating "Germany must, therefore, make use of its right to the primacy of national law". He announced that under his leadership "there will be fundamental changes to the right of entry, asylum and residence in the Federal Republic of Germany". Merz said that if he were elected chancellor, on the first day of his term in office, he would instruct the Federal Ministry of the Interior to "permanently control the German state borders", and, "to reject all attempts at illegal entry without exception". There would be "a de facto ban on entry into the Federal Republic of Germany for anyone who does not have valid entry documents". He announced a tightening of detention for departure and deportation, and he wants more powers for the federal police. Regarding that, the federal police would be given the right to apply for arrest warrants. Those required to leave the country would no longer be allowed to move freely within the country, and the number of places for deportation detention would increase rapidly.