AfD's Eastern Surge Prompts Immigrant Soul-Searching in Germany

In the autumn of 2026, electoral results across eastern Germany became something more than political data for the people who live there — they became a mirror held up to immigrants who had built lives, raised families, and woven themselves into local communities. The Alternative for Germany party's surge in the former East, rooted in decades of post-reunification anxiety and economic grievance, transformed polling numbers into a deeply personal question: does this country still want us here? What unfolds is not merely a story of votes and parties, but of belonging itself becoming uncertain — a