ATTACK BER DEPORTATION PRISON

This text aims solely at shedding light on the infrastructure of the German federal mass deportation machine. 

The EU’s treatment of migrants and asylum seekers is already inhumane. Yet fortress Europe continues to expand its borders, thereby also pushing the boundaries of what is permissible to think and say. The reform of the Common European Asylum System (GEAS in German) came into effect on June 12, 2026. This reform includes: significant tightening of asylum laws, the introduction of special centers (secondary migration centers), massive restriction of freedom of movement, the introduction of detention during the asylum process and the possibility of detaining children. More and tighter controls at the external borders, screening of irregular arrivals, and fast-track asylum procedures at the borders with the possibility of timely returns. All these diffrent types of procedures and of arrest aim at the same goal of dehumanitising people on the move and removing them from civil society. For these changes, already existing and new deportation prisons and centers located close to airports in Berlin/Brandenburg, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Köln/Bonn, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart and München will be used.

Implementing the new rules requires new procedures and new infrastructure by EU-states, such as the building of deportation prisons. A so-called "entry and exit centre" is to be built on an area of 4 hectares at BER airport, in Schönefeld. What is actually planned here is a deportation centre and a prison. In the building complex, all processes of restrictive asylum procedures and deportations are to be centralised and take place far away from the public and solidarity structures. These include BAMF offices, a juridicial building, deportation prison, a transit prison, and the GEAS first arrival center. This also includes detentions, even during the asylum process, according to the new law. At BER airport there is already a facility for the detention of migrants, refugees and travellers, the so-called "Ausreisegewahrsam", where up to 20 people can be held for a short time to ensure their deportation. In the "detention building" of the planned new deportation centre, a whole 120 places will be created for detaining people. Several forms of detention are to be combined here under one roof: Departure custody (§ 62b AufenthG), transit custody and detention (§ 15 AufenthG), and detention during airport asylum procedures (§ 18a AsylG). 

The new plan is the embodiment of the capitalist class working hand-in-hand with the state, as the deportation prison is to be built by the investor Jürgen B. Harder (Harder&Partner) to then be rented back. Jürgen Harder plans to build one of Europe’s largest deportation centers at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport in Schönefeld in order to make millions off of it. There, people are to be isolated and rapidly deported, which virtually destroys their chances of asylum or legal defense. Construction of this deportation center could begin as early as this year. Harder has an opaque corporate network and is involved in many other projects; see bottom of page, also www.jbharder.com. What is also new here is that the deportation prison at BER is the first privately built and owned deportation prison in Germany. Brandenburg made a deal with Harder before construction plans were official, so that Harder could buy the land, build the prison, and afterwards rent it out to Brandeburg again, guaranteeing profit of millions of euros.

In Düsseldorf, too, a deportation prison is to be built near the airport. In Passau, the construction of a gigantic detention centre for "criminal prisoners" and "deportation detainees" has already begun. In Munich and close to Halle more prisons are either already being built or have been approved recently. Part of the current “deportation offensive” is a planned deportation camp with 200 beds, which is to be built on the Oder Island north of Frankfurt/Oder. It is located far from any infrastructure and is difficult for supporters to reach. People whom Germany wishes to deport but cannot currently deport are to be held there under inhumane conditions in order to coerce them into “voluntary” departure.

The construction project at BER must be understood in the context of these plans, as part of a larger development of Germany's and the EU's racist border regime. Deporting more and faster, shielding those affected from the rest of society, stopping migration movements, if possible, even before they reach the European continent. The goal is to hold people in a legal non-space, where they can be processed by the inhumane border regime.

In the context of this increasing militarization of border regimes and surveillance measures, it is becoming increasingly challenging to mount effective resistance. This makes it all the more important that we look for vulnerabilities and target individuals in key roles. One example of such a key figure is Mr. Jürgen Harder. He is the owner of the only plots of land at the airport where the detention center can be built. Brandenburg is dependent on Harder, and if we can persuade him to withdraw from the project, the construction of the deportation detention center at BER Airport could stall and possibly come to a complete halt. Another point of attack for resisting deportation practices are the airlines that carry out deportations. A list of such airlines can be found on the website https://deportationalarm.com/. Of course, it is legitimate to also target the private residences of those who profit from deportations, even if they cannot single-handedly halt a project. We do not view the private sphere as a sanctuary where individuals can be free from the consequences of their actions. There can be no “end of the workday” or “vacation” from being an asshole. If the strategy is to increase the costs of deportations, it is effective to increase the personal costs for individuals who participate in inhumane practices such as deportations.

In the face of an ongoing effort of automatizing the bureaucratic as well as material infrastructure of fascism our response can only be decentralized. Deportation infrastructure is a key element of the machinery of death, both in its concrete violence and in its pivotal function for a broad alliance of fascist governments. The construction of the deportation center BER must be stopped. Beyond Harder, its conctruction relies on a collabarotion of different private actors all driven by capitalist greed and profitting off of the Border-Industrial complex.

ATTACHED you can find a list of all companies whose involvement in the buiding process of the new deportation prison at BER is (partially) confrimed plus a list of adresses all over Germany.

Just as their attack on freedom of movement and an autonomous life relies upon infrastructural networks of death, our resistance must take the form of a decentralized network of organized defiance, desertion and sabotage.

 

---