The thing that triggered the protests was a meeting of the far right including AFD people where they discussed a plan to deport all migrants including those that have a German passport. There is no listening to that kind of blatantly unconstitutional nonsense.

I do think the communication from the left on migration is often problematic, at least for the center-left parties in Germany there isn't a huge difference to what the center-right parties want. The main difference is the rethoric and how they talk about it.