Four young foreign residents of Berlin are being deported for protesting Israel’s war on Gaza, in a move that has drawn comparisons to authoritarian crackdowns in the U.S. None of the four individuals have been convicted of any crimes. The deportations are proceeding under political pressure, despite objections from Berlin’s own immigration authority.
According to reporting by The Intercept, the deportation orders were issued by the Berlin Senate administration and override the position of the city’s top immigration official, who stated the protesters had not committed any legal infractions. Three of those targeted are EU citizens who, under normal circumstances, would be protected by freedom of movement agreements within the European Union.
Immigration lawyers, civil rights advocates, and legal scholars are alarmed. Alexander Gorski, an attorney for two of the deportees, called the decision “straight out of the far right’s playbook” and drew direct parallels with the U.S. practice of targeting activists by manipulating immigration laws. “Political dissent is silenced by targeting the migration status of protesters,” he said.
The move follows similar actions in the United States, where immigration laws have been used as tools of political repression. Activists have faced detention or deportation on the basis of protest involvement, particularly in movements that criticize Israeli state policy or U.S. military support.
The precedent being set in Berlin has grave implications. These deportations expand the definition of “public threat” to include political speech. In doing so, Germany is placing the rights of protesters beneath the sensitivities of a foreign power.
The targeting of protesters who speak out against Israel’s war on Gaza represents not only a moral capitulation, but a direct assault on democratic norms. Legal dissent is being reframed as a threat. For a country still reckoning with its past, Germany’s willingness to punish peaceful protestors with exile is a chilling step backward.
German state media, including Deutsche Welle, has largely avoided the topic or downplayed the legal concerns. English-language coverage by outlets such as Politico EU and Reuters has buried the lack of criminal charges or omitted the EU citizenship of those being expelled. Few headlines mention that the deportations were made under political pressure.
U.S. outlets have not broadly covered the story, reflecting the normalization of using immigration law to punish dissent.
Berlin is no longer punishing crime. It is punishing speech. Peaceful opposition to Israel’s war is being reclassified as a deportable offense. This is not rule of law. This is authoritarian creep.
