Tensions were exposed when the Germans care about immigration

“I was crying,” says Alya, when he saw news from Munich’s attack last week who left a small child already dead mother.

“Why should someone do something like that? Why? I can’t understand it.”

An Afghan man is in custody after what was the last of a series of attacks in German cities where the suspect has been an asylum applicant.

Last Thursday was a mother and a daughter in Munich; Last month, another child and an adult were killed in Aschaffenburg.

Alya came here a decade of Syria with her son. Now 10, he and his mother welcome me home.

They were among a record of 1.2 million people who requested asylum in Germany since 2015-16, many of them from Syria, but also from countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

The attacks have put the security and migration to the front and the center of an electoral campaign, days before the Germans vote on their next government on February 23.

Alya despairs of those who commit violence in a country that, she says, “has given us everything.”

The BBC first listened to its history a decade before, when they were filmed in a refugee center in the city of Oberhausen.

Rami looks at a photo of himself of 2015. He is small, wrapped in a life jacket of when his mother fled Syria, devastated by war.

“How could I go with him in that boat?” She wonders, remembering how they crossed the Aegean Sea with another 60, packed in a small boat.

“I didn’t know that it had gone through that,” says Rami. He scares him to see him now.

Ten years later, Alya has trained in the care of the elderly and has married again. She is looking for work, while Rami goes to a local school and is a passionate football fan.

Both speak German: Rami has grown with the language and Alya has studied it.

They are grateful to their adoptive country and plan to stay; Rami dreams of becoming a doctor, police or footballer.

The mother and child have changed, as expected, in the last 10 years.

Germany has also done.

In 2015, sweet scenes were given to refugees who arrived at the Munich train station, since an incomparable number of people fled to Europe due to conflicts, instability or poverty.

German Welcome culture, Or the cozy culture, it encapsulated when the then chancellor, Angela Merkel, declared: “We can handle this.”

For his followers, it was a pragmatic and compassionate reaction; For his critics, one of his most unforgivable mistakes.

A decade later and anyone with whom I have spoken accepts that attitudes have hardened, in society and politically.

Alya says he has “many German friends”, but has detected the broader change in mood in Germany and mentions hearing the phrase Foreign – Foreigners.

However, she is “very sad” about refugees and migrants who do not learn German or, in their opinion, they have not been able to integrate properly.

“The key to this country is the language,” he says, while adding: “There is also a positive side that many people have learned the language and have begun to work.”

Near the main park of Oberhausen, Georg, 66, says he continues with people of all origins, but cares about the cases of “radicalization.”

He has lived in the city most of his life and used to work as a car mechanic and tiler. It filies what sees a general decrease in Oberhausen, pointing out due to infrastructure aging and lack of investment.

Many in Germany also speak of a desire for greater public security and a disappointment with the parties that have governed the country from reunification.

The outgoing government of Germany has reimposed border controls, since it tries to reduce the number of asylum applicants, and opposition parties want to go further.

Georg says it is a difficult problem, but he believes that there must be security: “It doesn’t matter who is in charge. It’s not how it is now. He has to change.”

Before the migration crisis in Europe, Oberhausen was already a multicultural city.

The local government figures show that in 2010, 22% of people in Oberhausen were not born as German citizens or had an immigrant father.

For 2016, that figure had increased to 28%, while the last figure, since 2023, was up to 37%.

Walking through the center, the tense nature of Germany’s migration debate is quickly evident.

Around a corner, there is a demonstration against the far -right alternative for the Germany (AFD) party that has adopted the concept of “remembered”; A widely understood phrase to mean mass deportations.

On the main street, an AFD festival has been presented, but soon attracts shouts of “Nazis”.

Two color men end up in an agreed argument with party activists that we are openly filming.

We listen to one of the AFD activists, with whom we had previously been talking about, say: “Go back to your Hometown (Homeland) If you don’t like this here. ”

When I challenge this man, Jörg Lange, then denies that the comment was racist.

A city councilor tells me that voters will have an skepticism of opinion and voice that one of the men grew here, despite their fluidity in the language.

“Would you have told a white person?” Asked.

“No, of course not,” replies Mr. Lange, but again denies that it is racist.

“He personally attacked me,” says Lange. “He said ‘you are Nazi’. And then, of course, you have to say that if something does not stay here in Germany, then you can return. Then leave us alone here.”

Police arrive, during which I speak with the two men involved in the discussion, Kwame and Prathep, both in their thirty years.

“He told us to go back!” Kwame says while Prathep says that returning “would mean going to” to three streets from here. “

“We went to school here, we grew up here … We have children here,” they tell me. “We pay taxes, we pay many taxes!”

I ask the couple if their role in the altercation adds to the growing temperature of the political debate.

Kwame, who used the term “Nazis” on the argument, says that the “derogatory” language that listens to people of color “triggers it.” “We feel that Wow, are we still in the same place at this time?”

Dance choreographer tells me that he came to Germany from Ghana at age 13, while Prathep describes how he was born in the city.

“I am a German,” says Prathep. “I am proud of this city,” Chimes in Kwame. “Wherever I go in the world (I say) I’m from Oberhausen.”

Both think that their community has become “drastically” more divided in recent years.

The political climate, which includes a constantly strong survey for the AFD, has led to a hardening of language by some of Germany’s main political parties.

The Christian Democratic conservatives leading the surveys have requested a “border prohibition” to anyone who enters Germany without the right documents, even if they are looking for protection.

Social democrats have pledged to accelerate asylum procedures and increase deportations.

AFD wants to close Germany’s borders and leave the common European asylum policy.

Alya expects Germany to keep its doors open to refugees: “There is still a war everywhere. And people need this … Maybe there are very good people who escape from war.”

The future of Germany’s migration policy will depend on which parties form a coalition after this election and how they can agree.

But a change towards law is already underway, actually and rhetoric.