Many refugees come to Germany not only from Syria and Afghanistan. Tens of thousands have also come from a country much closer this year.
In Germany, more than 300,000 people applied for asylum for the first time this year. This emerges from statistics published on Thursday by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf). According to the information, in addition to Syrians and Afghans, many people from Turkey are now applying for protection in Germany.
According to Bamf, 304,581 foreigners applied for asylum in Germany for the first time from the beginning of January to the end of November – around 60 percent more than in the same period last year. More than 21,000 of these applications concerned children born in Germany under the age of one year. With more than 55,000 initial asylum applications since the beginning of the year, Turkey has been the country of origin with the most access after Syria in 2023 and was therefore ahead of Afghanistan.
“Such a development is not acceptable for a NATO partner and EU membership candidate,” said the deputy chairwoman of the Union parliamentary group, Andrea Lindholz. The CSU politician accused the traffic light government of neglecting this development.
Unauthorized entries have been declining since October
A few days ago, Lindholz asked the federal government about possible reasons for the increase in the number of Turkish citizens. According to the Interior Ministry’s assessment, this is due, among other things, to “the situation in Turkey as well as the individual circumstances of the Turkish nationals arriving here.”
The number of unauthorized entries has fallen significantly since October. However, since a few weeks usually pass between entry and the formal application for asylum, this decline is not yet noticeable in the Bamf’s statistics.
“Unimpressed, the traffic light is sticking to its paradigm shift in migration policy and is even now pushing turbo-naturalization through the Bundestag,” criticized the Union parliamentary group’s domestic policy spokesman, Alexander Throm (CDU). Without the increase in the number of rejections made possible by border controls, even more people would come to Germany irregularly, he added. It is therefore important to extend these controls, which were introduced in mid-October, on the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland in the long term.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
