stricter

Berlin calls itself ‘locomotive’ of European crackdown on immigration, expelling 81 Afghans before meeting.

Germany’s interior minister has hosted five of his European counterparts to discuss ways of tightening the region’s asylum rules, as his country deported 81 Afghans to their Taliban-controlled homeland.

The European Union’s immigration system needed to be “tougher and stricter”, Minister Alexander Dobrindt said after Friday’s meeting in southern Germany with the interior ministers of France, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Denmark, as well as EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner.

The cohort issued a five-page communique on their aims, which included the establishment of “return hubs” for holding people outside the EU, enabling asylum procedures in third countries, and allowing deportations to Afghanistan and Syria as standard practice.

All measures would require approval from Brussels.

“When we analyse what has been agreed here, it’s lofty ambitions, but not much detail about how they intend to pursue what’s in these five pages,” said Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin.

Ministers, he said, had talked about “the sorts of things that they agree on, but they know they can’t implement them themselves as unilateral decisions.”

Speaking after the meeting, Dobrindt said, “We wanted to send a signal that Germany is no longer sitting in the brakeman’s cab on migration issues in Europe, but is in the locomotive.”

Afghans deported

Hours before the meeting, Germany demonstrated just how serious it was about cracking down on migration by sending 81 Afghan nationals back to their homeland, prompting an outcry from rights organisations.

Amnesty International criticised the deportations, saying the situation in Afghanistan was “catastrophic” and that “extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture are commonplace”.

Europe’s top economy had stopped deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul following the Taliban movement’s return to power in 2021.

But Berlin resumed expulsions last year when the previous government of Olaf Scholz expelled 28 convicted Afghans.

Current Chancellor Friedrich Merz defended the expulsions of the 81 Afghan men, saying he was “grateful” to be able to deliver on promises made when entering government in May.

None of those deported “had a residence status any more. All asylum applications were legally rejected without further legal recourse”, he said at a news conference.

Bavaria state’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said 15 of the deported Afghans had been incarcerated for crimes, including murder and manslaughter, sexual offences and property crimes.

The state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said 13 Afghans deported from there had been jailed for crimes including homicide, bodily harm, drug offences and serious arson.

In the wake of the announcement, the United Nations said no one should be sent back to Afghanistan, whatever their status.

The UN human rights commissioner called for an “immediate halt to the forcible return of all Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers”, highlighting the risks faced by returnees.

June 20 (UPI) — Fossil fuel companies can challenge California setting stricter emissions standards for cars, the U.S Supreme Court ruled Friday.

California has stipulated that only zero-emission cars will be able to sold there by 2035, with a phased increase in ZEV requirements for model years 2026-2035. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set a fleet-wide average of 49 mpg by model year 2026, with higher standards in the following years.

In the 7-2 opinion authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court ruled that oil producers have legal standing to sue over California’s clean car standards approved by the U.S. EPA. Dissenting were Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, two of the court’s three Democratic-appointed justices.

“This case concerns only standing, not the merits,” Kavanaugh wrote in the 48-page opinion that included two dissents. “EPA and California may or may not prevail on the merits in defending EPA’s approval of the California regulations. But the justiciability of the fuel producers’ challenge to EPA’s approval of the California regulations is evident.”

The Clean Air Act supersedes state laws that regulate motor vehicle emissions, but it allows the EPA to issue a waiver for California. Other states can copy California’s stricter standard.

The states are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia.

The EPA, when Barack Obama was president, granted a waiver for California, but President Trump partially withdrew it during his first term.

When Joe Biden became president in 2021, the EPA reinstated the waiver with the tougher emissions.

Last week, Trump signed a bi-partisan congressional resolution to rescind California’s electric vehicle mandate. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, called this move illegal and will sue over this order.

“You couldn’t buy any other car except an electric-powered car, and in California, they have blackouts and brownouts,” Trump said last week. “They don’t have enough electricity right now to do the job. And, countrywide, you’d have to spend four trillion dollars to build the firing plants, charging plants.”

Gasoline and other liquid fuel producers and 17 Republic-led states sued, arguing California’s regulations reduce the manufacturing of gas-powered cars. The lead plaintiff was Diamond Alternative Energy, which sells renewable diesel, an alternative to traditional petroleum-derived diesel. Valero Energy Corp. also joined in the suit.

Automakers were involved in the case.

California lawyers argue the producers have no legal standing, which requires showing that a favorable court ruling would redress a plaintiff’s injury.

The EPA said consumer demand for electric cars would exceed California’s mandate and hence the regulations wouldn’t have an impact.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the lawsuit.

“If invalidating the regulations would change nothing in the market, why are EPA and California enforcing and defending the regulations?” Kavanaugh wrote.

“The whole point of the regulations is to increase the number of electric vehicles in the new automobile market beyond what consumers would otherwise demand and what automakers would otherwise manufacture and sell.”

Sotomayor and Jackson separately wrote the case may become moot.

“I see no need to expound on the law of standing in a case where the sole dispute is a factual one not addressed below,” Sotomayor wrote.

She said she would have sent the case back to the lower court to look at the issue again.

Jackson said her colleagues weren’t applying the standing doctrine evenhandedly and it can erode public trust in judges.

“This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this Court than ordinary citizens. Because the Court had ample opportunity to avoid that result, I respectfully dissent,” Jackson wrote.

The ruling does not prevent California and other states from enforcing standards, Vickie Patton, general counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund, told The Guardian.

“The standards have saved hundreds of lives, have provided enormous health benefits, and have saved families money,” Patton said. “While the Supreme Court has now clarified who has grounds to bring a challenge to court, the decision does not affect California’s bedrock legal authority to adopt pollution safeguards, nor does it alter the life-saving, affordable, clean cars program itself.”