Germany: Over 100,000 first-time asylum applications for the ninth year in a row
Berlin - By the end of September 100,278 migrants had already submitted an initial application to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), reports Welt am Sonntag, citing figures from the European asylum agency EASO. According to this, Germany remains by far the most important destination country for people seeking protection in Europe. France followed with 54,105 asylum applications in the first three quarters of the current year, Spain (41,799), Italy (37,492) and Austria (22,928). In September 13,849 applications were submitted in Germany.
Since November 2017, there has only been one month with higher asylum immigration, January 2019. In addition to the long-standing illegal onward migration via Italy, Greece and Spain, the new route via Belarus has been added since the summer. As the Federal Police announced, "since August alone, 4,900 people have been found at the German-Polish border who entered Germany illegally via Belarus and Poland. The trend is still increasing."
So far most of the migrants have flown via Turkey to Belarus, meanwhile flights to Minsk directly from Syria have also been determined, reports Welt am Sonntag. The newspaper quotes from Europol circles: "New visa facilitations on the part of Belarus will very likely increase illegal entry attempts into the EU from mid-October." Belarus is now granting tourist visas for 90 days to people from Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan.
So far, a particularly large number of people from Iraq had arrived there, who then ultimately also formed the largest group of those who had arrived in Germany. Unauthorized entry of asylum seekers must not be prevented by the border police because the necessary stationary border controls are seen by the federal government as a danger for the "Europe of open internal borders". The Federal Police told the newspaper: "The German-Polish border is an internal Schengen border that can be crossed at any time and at any point."
In the case of unauthorized persons who have entered the country, a check is carried out to determine whether "measures to terminate the stay" could be initiated. "If a request for protection has been made, there is currently no way to do so." The future governing coalition is expected to make it easier for rejected asylum seekers to "change lanes" into the labor market and thus create opportunities for legal permanent residence. The Union is critical of this. For Thorsten Frei (CDU) "the change of lane demanded by all traffic light parties equals the task of migration control". That was "an invitation to asylum fraud", said the parliamentary deputy of the Union in the Bundestag, who is responsible for migration issues, reported Welt am Sonntag.
Source: Der Newsticker
Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
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