Doner-Söder and the Deportation of Care

Markus Söder loves to appear in costumes. Sometimes as a nutcracker, sometimes as Superman, sometimes as "Doner-Söder," posing between meat skewers and food trucks as if he were an influencer of the fast-food industry. He serves up images for headlines, fodder for clicks. A man who will do anything to not be forgotten. Yet while the Minister President entertains the republic in disguises, his Bavaria writes another, darker script - one in which trained caregivers and dedicated trainees are deported, right into a shortage of skilled workers that has long since become a national crisis. The cases are documented, they are real, they are absurd. In Isny in the Allgäu, in July 2025, 26-year-old caregiver Ismail A. from Ethiopia was taken away by four police officers during his shift at the St. Elisabeth senior care center - in the middle of residents he was caring for. Meanwhile, in the Leutkirch senior center Carl-Joseph, the management, staff, and relatives are fighting for the right of Sudan S., a caregiver from Sri Lanka, to stay. He has reached B1 language level, an apprenticeship contract is signed, funding is in place, and he has a flawless criminal record check - and yet the immigration authority ordered his deportation. Two hundred residents and staff signed petitions, the operator Vinzenz von Paul gGmbH hired a lawyer - so far in vain. In Passau, an Iranian caregiver trainee who has lived in Germany for six years, converted, and worked in care, faces deportation. Reason: he could not present passport documents. Even though he was close to finishing his training, the government of Lower Bavaria forced his employer to terminate his contract. In Landshut, meanwhile, Achdorf Hospital is fighting for Papa Madior Diop, who has worked in the hospital’s transport service for more than eight years. His asylum application was rejected, and a petition against his planned deportation quickly gathered hundreds of supporters. And already in 2018, the Bavarian Administrative Court made it clear that Bavaria had acted unlawfully when it deported a Ukrainian nursing student despite a valid training suspension of deportation. The court ordered the Free State to provide her, her husband, and her daughter with free re-entry so she could continue her training (Az. 19 CE 18.1495, ruling of 07/27/2018).

These are not isolated cases. This is politics. This is Söder’s Bavaria. A state that executes deportations while nursing homes desperately search for staff. A state that turns the Integration Act into a farce, ignores training suspensions of deportation, and even violates existing law. A state that knows the demographic catastrophe - and still puts the few people who are willing to work in care on deportation lists. And meanwhile, the Minister President tours the country as a food influencer, as a carnival figure, as a state clown with power. Söder, who delights in selfies with doner kebabs but stays silent when caregivers are taken away from nursing homes. Söder, who governs a state where caregivers are criminalized while he elevates himself with ridiculous performances. The picture is grotesque: here the Minister President roasting on a spit, there caregivers disappearing into police vans. It is a politics that truly honors one party: the AfD. The headlines, the mood, the severity - all of it already bears their signature. Söder’s CSU copies the original, only in a statesmanlike tone. Deportation as staging, costume as distraction, harshness against the weakest as proof of power. Bavaria thus becomes the blueprint for a politics that destroys integration, worsens the shortage of skilled workers, and places the face of the Minister President above everything else.

The truth is bitter: caregivers are deported while Söder in fast-food costumes seeks applause. Nursing homes lose employees while the Minister President spins doner kebabs. Courts must order re-entries because the state government acts unlawfully, while Söder plays carnival for the cameras. A state that acts in this way has lost its moral compass. And a Minister President who fills his term with kitsch and costumes while lives and caregiving jobs are destroyed in the background has turned himself into a caricature.

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