The policy was brought in on May 7, just a day after conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his cabinet took office with a promise to crack down on irregular migration.
However, Berlin’s Administrative Court ruled on Monday that people “who express the wish to seek asylum while at a border check on German territory may not be sent back” before it was determined which state was responsible for processing their claim under the EU’s so-called “Dublin” system.
Despite this, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said hours after the judgement that “we will continue with the pushbacks”, adding that “we think we have the legal justification for this”.
Monday’s court decision follows an appeal made by three Somali nationals who encountered an immigration check at a train station at Frankfurt an der Oder on the Polish border on May 9.
They expressed their wish to claim asylum in Germany but were sent back to Poland the same day.
The court said that their pushback was illegal and that its “findings can also be applied to other cases” of people being turned away at Germany’s borders.
However, the court also ruled that “the petitioners cannot demand to be allowed into” Germany.
