Numbers declining during pandemic
Germany is deporting more people again
December 21, 2023, 7:30 a.m
The federal government is tightening its migration policy: more isolation, more deportations. After just ten months, more people had to leave the country than in the entire previous year. Significantly more people are being deported to one country in particular.
The number of deportations from Germany has continued to rise. In the first ten months of the current year, 13,512 people were deported, more than in the entire year of 2022, as the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” (NOZ) reported, citing a response from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to a small question from left-wing MP Clara Bünger. In 2022 there were 12,945 deportations.
Especially because of the corona pandemic, there have been significantly fewer deportations in recent years: in 2020 there were 10,800 and in 2021 there were 11,982. In 2019, before the pandemic, 22,097 people were deported.
The most important target countries so far this year have been Austria, Georgia, North Macedonia, Moldova and Albania, as the newspaper also reported. The increase in deportations to Turkey is particularly clear. From January to the end of October, 744 people were deported there, and in 2022 as a whole there were 515 deportations.
People whose asylum application is rejected and whose residence permit has expired must leave Germany within a short period of time. You are then obliged to leave the country. If you do not leave the country voluntarily within a set period of time, the immigration authorities must deport you. However, there are obstacles, such as illness. Then people often receive a toleration.
Left-wing MP Bünger criticized the increase in deportations. “In concrete terms, this means that more and more people are being forced back against their will to countries where they are threatened with war, arbitrary detention, torture, extreme poverty or a lack of prospects,” she told the newspaper. In your opinion, it would be much better to give these people the path to permanent residency. Bünger called the increase in deportations to Turkey particularly worrying.