TV duel: Statements on the subject of “migration” in the fact check

In their first TV duel before the Bundestag election, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Union Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz (CDU) argued particularly violently about migration and mentioned various numbers. A check:

His government had ensured that 40,000 rejections had been carried out.

This actually corresponds to the information from the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI). “There were 43,500 rejections on the German borders,” said a spokesman at the government press conference of January 27. “Such rejections have taken place to a large extent, since there have been inland boundary controls at the German borders – initially to four borders since October 2023, since autumn 2024 at all German borders.”

Last year the number of those who came irregularly (to Germany) has dropped by 100,000 – over a third.

The BMI spokesman also confirmed this at the end of January. “In 2024 we had 111,000 asylum applications compared to 2023. This is a decline in irregular migration by 34 percent.” According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), there were almost 251,000 asylum applications in 2024, and almost 352,000 in the previous year.

In January 2025 there has been the lowest value of asylum applications since 2016.

Scholz is not right here. According to BAMF, 16,594 asylum applications were made in January 2025. During his own reign, there were months with fewer applications, for example in December 2024 (13,716) or in April 2022 (13,056). But also during the black-red predecessor under Angela Merkel (CDU), the figures were underneath-not only in the Corona period, but also before that, such as in June 2019 (9,691) or in January 2018 (15.077).

“We have increased the deportations by 70 percent since I was a chancellor.”

In the Corona year 2020 there were 10,800 deportations from Germany. In 2021 there were 11,982 deportations. Since then, the total number of deportations has increased annually. For the period from January to November 2024, the number was 18,384. This is actually an increase of almost 70 percent compared to 2020. Scholz had only taken over the office of Chancellor on December 8, 2021. The increase has been around 53 percent since 2021.

“We still have as many immigrants in four days as in one month. That is still too many. We had 240,000 last year.”

The number of 240,000 roughly corresponds to the information from the BAMF. According to this, there were almost 230,000 initial applications on asylum last year. That would be an average of 629 a day. In contrast, there were deportations in the eleven months from January to November, i.e. an average of 1,671 per month.

“We saw well over two million irregular migrants to Germany in the three years of their term in Germany.”

What Merz understands here by “irregular migration” is not immediately apparent. Unauthorized entry was registered by the Federal Police between December 2021 and January 2025, far less than two million, namely only 313,000. There were not so many asylum requests either: a good 805,000 income was made in Germany during this time.