Too many without grounds for asylum
Scholz wants to limit “irregular migration”
26.07.2024, 17:11
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Chancellor Scholz wants to “continue to strictly” control the borders. “The numbers have to go down,” he says. He believes that border controls are a good idea for this. Skeptical tones are coming from the Union. They want to keep a close eye on what the vague words are worth.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz believes that border controls are a sensible measure to limit irregular migration to Germany. “In general, it is our intention to continue to strictly control the German borders,” the SPD politician told the “Saarbrücker Zeitung”. “We want to limit irregular migration, I have announced that. The numbers must go down.”
Although economic migration is necessary and desirable, “there are too many who come to us irregularly and say they are seeking protection from persecution, but cannot give reasons for asylum and are then rejected,” Scholz added. He also referred to existing controls, such as at the border with France during the Olympic Games. These are to apply until September 30.
Last October, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser ordered stationary controls at the land borders with Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Poland and registered them with the EU Commission. These controls are ongoing in order to limit irregular migration and combat people smuggling. They are currently limited to December 15 for Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Poland, and to November 11 for Austria, where controls have been in place since autumn 2015.
AfD wants “comprehensive” border protection
For the chairwoman of the AfD parliamentary group, Alice Weidel, none of this is enough. The co-chairwoman said: “We need effective and complete protection of our borders, even away from the main traffic routes, the reduction of incentives for illegal immigration and a deportation offensive that makes a name for itself not only through announcements but also through numbers.”
Skeptical tones are coming from the Union, which – also with a view to the personnel costs for the federal police – is proposing a different strategy. “We will watch very closely to see what the Chancellor’s vague words on border controls are worth,” said the deputy parliamentary group leader, Andrea Lindholz.
The Union is convinced that Germany should notify the EU Commission of controls for all border sections in the long term. Only then can the federal police operate directly at the border and also reject people there. France has been doing this for a long time without it breaking up the Schengen area. “That does not mean that there must be full-strength controls at every border crossing around the clock,” explained the CSU politician.
In principle, there should be no border controls in the Schengen area, which includes most EU countries as well as non-EU countries such as Switzerland. However, due to the tense migration situation, several countries are now carrying out controls at some of their internal Schengen borders.
Over 6400 rejections within six weeks
During the European Football Championship, checks were carried out at all German borders. According to the Federal Police Headquarters in Potsdam, a total of 9,172 unauthorized entries were detected between June 7 and July 19. Of these, 6,401 people who entered the country without permission were turned away, it was reported.
According to the information, the police also temporarily arrested 275 suspected people smugglers. In the first half of this year, 121,416 people applied for asylum for the first time at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, around 19 percent fewer than in the same period last year. War refugees from Ukraine are currently still being accepted in accordance with the EU mass influx directive. They do not have to apply for asylum.
According to experts, the additional border controls have contributed to fewer people seeking protection coming to Germany since the autumn. Another factor is probably border protection measures in other countries, for example along the so-called Balkan route. Currently, the only people being turned away are those who are banned from re-entering the country or who do not request asylum.
Today the Union sounds different
The Union has been considering which rules should apply at the German borders since autumn 2015, when hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers – many of them from Syria – came to Germany within a few weeks. The then Chancellor Angela Merkel said in February 2016: “Many people keep telling me these days: There was life before Schengen. And I answer: I know, there was life before German reunification. The borders were even better protected then.”
Today, the Union sounds different. Lindholz believes that the current federal government should have clarified in the course of the recently adopted European asylum law reform “that we can also reject people who have already found refuge in another EU country or who could have applied for asylum in the country from which they want to enter Germany.” The current “overload situation” is a sufficient argument for this. Since European asylum law has not been followed by some important member states for years, its priority is “very questionable” anyway. Even if the asylum reform were to have an effect, it would take at least two years.