"And I have to be honest with you: If it is going to be called remigration, then that is what it is going to be – remigration,” said Alice Weidel, leader of the far-right German party Alternative for Germany (AfD), at the party congress in Riesa on Jan. 11, 2025, after calling for border closures, the withdrawal of benefits from people without residence rights and large-scale repatriations.

The AfD later stated that the "remigration” it referred to meant the legal removal of people without the right to remain. Weidel’s formulation, however, did not specify who would fall within that category or how its boundaries would be defined.

This ambiguity is relevant to Germany’s Turkish diaspora. The party presents its migration agenda as directed at irregular migration and rejected asylum seekers, while its wider positions on Islam, dual citizenship and cultural conformity concern communities, even those that have lived in Germany for decades. Citizenship and long-term residence may not be sufficient to determine who is treated as an accepted migrant and who is cast as an unacceptable one. Political judgments about integration, loyalty and cultural practice can still shape that distinction.

Bizarrely, the party has also sought to reach Turkish-origin voters while retaining its positions on immigration, Islam and cultural pluralism.

Three aspects of the AfD’s record illustrate how its contradictions pose a broader risk to Germany.

Perspective on Islam, minorities

First, the exception for "well-integrated” migrants is not consistently reflected in the party’s own policy agenda.

The AfD’s platform chapter on Islam states that "Islam is not a part of Germany” and supports restrictions on minarets, the Muslim call to prayer and full-face veils. AfD representatives have also advocated restrictions on headscarves in schools and other public settings.

These policies go beyond migration rules and concern Muslim institutions and families already living in Germany, including many within the Turkish diaspora. They also touch on how Muslim communities can practise their religion in public. However, mosques, associations, and community networks have become part of the social structure of Germany through decades of migration from Türkiye and other Muslim countries.

The legal debate surrounding the party also illustrates this tension. In February, the Cologne Administrative Court issued a temporary injunction preventing the domestic intelligence service from using the designation "confirmed right-wing extremist” for the AfD pending a final ruling. The decision did not validate the party’s programme. It found indications that some AfD statements and proposals could conflict with constitutional protections, including religious freedom. It concluded, however, that the evidence was not yet sufficient to apply the designation to the party as a whole.

Individual AfD voters may differ in their support for particular restrictions. The party still courts Turkish-origin voters while backing policies that would directly affect Muslim communities.

Assimilation as political test

Second, the Potsdam meeting showed how the language of "remigration” can extend beyond people without a right to remain. The "remigration” discussions associated with the 2023 Potsdam meeting included proposals concerning asylum seekers, foreign nationals with residence permits and, according to reporting on the meeting, German citizens considered "insufficiently assimilated."

The proposals discussed at the meeting were not official AfD policy, and their legal basis remains contested. However, their relevance lies in the way they tied belonging to "assimilation." In this vocabulary, assimilation is not a stable legal category. It is shaped by judgments about language, religion, cultural practices and political loyalty. A person may have citizenship, employment, a business or an elected position and still be presented as culturally outside the national community.

In 2017, Alexander Gauland said Aydan Özoğuz could be "disposed of in Anatolia.” Özoğuz, born in Hamburg to Turkish parents, was then Germany’s federal integration commissioner. Gauland was responding to her criticism of the idea that Germany has a single, distinct national culture. His remark treated her Turkish background as grounds for sending her somewhere else, despite her German citizenship and public office.

The same issue arises in debates about dual citizenship. AfD proposals have sought to tighten naturalization rules and criticize routine dual nationality. The German parliament rejected one such AfD motion in March. The broader question remains relevant for the approximately 338,000 people who hold both German and Turkish citizenship. In this debate, dual nationality can be presented as a sign of incomplete loyalty rather than an ordinary legal status.

Why strategy attracts support

Despite its anti-Muslim, anti-migrant framework, the strategy can still attract some Turkish-origin voters because it links immigration politics to concerns that are not exclusively about identity. These include economic pressure, insecurity, housing costs, dissatisfaction with public services and distrust of established parties.

Turkish-origin voters are not a uniform electoral group. Their preferences vary by generation, class, education, region, religious practice and political orientation. One pre-election survey found that nearly one in five voters of Turkish or Arab origin would consider voting for the AfD, although this has not necessarily translated into actual votes. The party has also used Turkish-language social media content to reach younger voters and frame its message around security, economic concerns, and criticism of mainstream parties.

This does not show a broad Turkish shift toward the AfD. It shows that the party has identified a political opening. It invites established migrants to view themselves as separate from refugees, recent arrivals and those portrayed as "failing to integrate." The resulting division is politically useful because it converts migration background from a shared experience into a hierarchy of deserved belonging.

Saxony-Anhalt could become the first German state led by the AfD. The party is polling above 40% ahead of the Sept. 6 election and has said it wants to govern alone.

The Turkish diaspora in Germany now faces a broader question: Do citizenship, long-term residence, and economic contribution provide secure grounds for belonging in a political climate that places growing emphasis on cultural conformity, Islam and loyalty?