Why Germany’s far right is looking to ICE for inspiration

While the recently ramped-up activity by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has triggered a wave of disapproval and outrage not only within the American borders but internationally for their excessive use of force and methods, the German far-right leaders are seemingly embracing their operations by proposing the creation of a similar model.

Germany's far-right Alternative für Deutschland or AfD party in Bavaria is proposing a specialised police unit modelled on the American agency to track asylum seekers and coordinate deportations, according to internal documents viewed by German media outlets.

At a recent press event following the winter conference of Bavarian lawmakers, AfD parliamentary group leader Katrin Ebner-Steiner initially avoided questions about this model, merely stating that the German unit's organisational structure was still open. The fact that the concept paper envisages an orientation "similar to the ICE" only became known later, when the documents were made available upon the media's request.

Beyond the deportation unit, the Bavarian AfD's position paper calls for mandatory community service for all asylum seekers and an evening curfew, which Ebner-Steiner said would "lead to an increase in public safety."

The party also proposes removing immigrant children struggling with German from mainstream schools and placing them in separate institutions.

Religious education for these students would be replaced with "cultural education and values education" to prevent "a lack of discipline and violence in our schools," according to state parliament member Markus Walbrunn.

The Bavarian AfD has been classified as a suspected right-wing extremist organisation by the state's Office for the Protection of the Constitution since 2022, a designation upheld by Munich's Administrative Court in June 2024.

The court found sufficient evidence of efforts against Germany's free democratic basic order, particularly regarding human dignity and democratic principles.

In Germany's 2025 federal election, the AfD became Bavaria's second-strongest party with approximately 19% of the vote, doubling its 2021 result, while the Christian Social Union under Bavarian Minister President Markus Söder retained first place with 37.2%.

By Nazrin Sadigova