Washington Joins the AfD Ban Debate, With a Visa Threat in Hand

A local parliamentary dispute in Thuringia has suddenly acquired a transatlantic complication. Anna Paulina Luna, a US Congresswoman, has warned German politicians who support banning the AfD that they could face an entry ban to the United States if the party is outlawed.

Her warning appears in a four-page letter addressed to members of the Thuringian Landtag, which Focus online says it obtained exclusively. The letter responds to a motion from The Left to launch party-ban proceedings. The AfD had asked Luna for a written assessment, and she answered with a blunt rejection of the idea. In her view, the state may punish offenders, but not thoughts or opinions, and she says the case does not rest on convincing evidence.

Luna’s message does not stop at principle. According to the report, she intends, should the AfD nevertheless be banned, to work with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on a travel ban for all lawmakers who introduced the motion and for those who support it. The elegance of foreign interference is usually overstated; this version at least has the virtue of being straightforward.

The first public hearing on the matter is scheduled for next Wednesday in the Thuringian Landtag. The AfD treats Luna’s intervention as confirmation of its own position. The Left sees something less flattering: an attempt to exert pressure on a German parliament from abroad. Katharina König-Preuss said her faction would not allow itself to be pressured, neither at the hearing nor in the parliamentary decision.

The party has informed the German Foreign Office, the president of the state parliament and the US Consulate General. That is the institutional answer to a political row that has now grown an American layer. Germany’s parties may still insist this is a purely domestic question, but once Washington starts talking about travel bans, the claim sounds a good deal less convincing.

Written by Thomas Nussbaumer thomas.nussbaumer@alpineweekly.com