According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, 39,646 people applied for protection in Germany for the first time between January and June. In the same period last year, there were 61,336 initial applications – a drop of around 35 percent. The previous year had already seen a decline of about half compared to the year before.
The black-red federal government has tightened migration policy since taking office just over a year ago. A central element of the so-called migration turnaround is rejections at Germany’s land borders: in the first half of the year, 14,270 people were turned away at the border. At the same time, police arrested nearly 500 suspected smugglers and identified more than 4,000 individuals with outstanding arrest warrants.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) announced a law in May to speed up deportations of rejected asylum seekers. “We are preparing a law for greater efficiency in returns, in order to permanently enable a high number of returns,” Dobrindt said. He did not specify a timeline. At the EU level, the European asylum reform came into force on June 12, which, among other things, provides for simplified deportations to third countries.
Migration researchers attribute the decline in initial applications primarily to changed situations in countries of origin such as Syria and in transit countries such as Iran or Turkey.
Source: www.zeit.de
