AfD split over ICE criticism as Chrupalla clashes with Weidel

Chrupalla calls for broader support on migration policy, while Tritschler pushes to copy US deportations. The dispute could shape whether Remigration stays a campaign theme.

Tino Chrupalla, co-leader of Germany's AfD, has criticised the US immigration authority ICE. Anyone who wants to regulate migration better must not divide but seek broad support, he said. Chrupalla's criticism drew the anger of the camp of co-leader Alice Weidel. The dispute over ICE now splits the party leadership.

The party leadership rejects an approach to deportations modeled on the US example, as the Handelsblatt reports. The debate inside the AfD is about where that course should now lead.

To back his argument, Chrupalla reached for American polling data as well. A Fox News poll, he pointed out, found that a majority of American citizens reject the way ICE operates. For him, that result supports the case for a more moderate migration policy. He also pointed to the Republicans' heavy defeat in the US midterm elections as further evidence for his position.

Within the AfD as well, Chrupalla's criticism of ICE met pushback. Sven Tritschler told The Pioneer that criticism of ICE is inappropriate. A migration turnaround, he said, is not soft and does not come without ugly pictures on television. He wants German authorities to act against illegal migrants as consistently as ICE. A majority of the AfD, he is sure, sees it the same way. Katrin Ebner-Steiner, the Bavarian AfD parliamentary group leader, compared Chrupalla to Angela Merkel on X. Merkel, she wrote, wanted in 2015 to avoid ugly images at the borders, and there are now ugly images in German cities.

In an interview on the TV show 60 Minutes after the midterms, Donald Trump called his deportation policy 'too tough'. He said many in the US believed people staying unlawfully in the country should not be deported if they work, for example, in a nursery or a hotel, and believed a settlement with the Democrats could be worked out for such situations. As Das Nachrichtenblatt reports, the conflict with Weidel will likely be carried out openly in the coming weeks. The party's positioning will decide whether Remigration stays a campaign theme or turns into a burden.