Illegal migration to Germany reached a peak in 7 years

In September, 21,366 people entered Germany illegally – the German Federal Police published such data on Saturday, 21 October. 

This is the highest monthly figure since February 2016, when 25,650 illegal immigrants entered Germany at the height of the migration crisis.

According to the police, the inflow of illegal migrants to the country has steadily increased over the past seven months. A total of 92,119 people entered Germany illegally between January and September. 

It is the highest monthly tabulation of “unauthorized entries” into the country since February 2016, when 25,650 came after the peak of the “refugee crisis”, DW reported. It follows a seven-month trend of increasingly high entry numbers.

Police data shows that 92,119 individuals illegally entered Germany between January and September 2023, putting the nation on track to exceed the 112,000 people that illegally entered in 2016.

The day before, the leaders of the three parties of the governing coalition – the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Free Democratic Party and the Greens – met in Berlin to discuss the situation with illegal migration. 

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the country should “finally deport on a large scale those who have no right to stay in Germany”.

At the same time, Scholz stressed that Germany must continue to accept people who are genuinely eligible for asylum and attract skilled immigrants in the face of an acute shortage of workers in the country.

Scholz was quoted as saying “a whole bundle of measures” were needed to address the issue of illegal migration into the EU — among them hardening the bloc’s external borders and increasing Germany’s control of its borders with EU neighbour countries.

On 16 October, the German government introduced temporary internal border controls at the land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland due to migration problems.