The German authorities announced on Wednesday that the country has decided to increase border controls along “smuggling routes” on the border with Czechia and Poland.
As the Federal Ministry of Interior explains, the checks have been intensified with the aim of detecting and preventing smuggling activities.
Ordering border controls with Czechia and Poland, the German Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, said that the controls are meant to put maximum pressure on smugglers and to protect people who are put at risk.
We have to stop the cruel business of smugglers who put human lives at risk for maximum profit. That’s why the Federal Police is now carrying out additional flexible priority checks on the smuggling routes at the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic.
Minister Faeser further said that the authorities are in close contact with Czechia and Poland as well as with the federal states of Saxony and Brandenburg, which have been registering large numbers of irregular entries this year.
According to Minister Faeser, by introducing the controls, the authorities want to prevent smugglers from facilitating irregular entries into the country. At the same time, she ensured that the border controls would have little to no impact on people, commuters, and commerce.
In addition to the above-mentioned, Minister Faeser noted that the common EU asylum system remains an important step in reducing irregular migration to the country.
Everyone at the EU’s external borders must be strictly checked and registered. Anyone who has little prospect of protection in the EU must go through a constitutional asylum procedure at the external borders and, if rejected, be repatriated directly from there.
According to the German Federal Ministry, the controls take place both in the border area and sometimes directly at the respective borderline.
Depending on the situation, the deployed officer will have to alternate along the smuggling route so that they make sure that no one enters the country irregularly.
Data from the German federal police show that around 71,000 unauthorised entries were registered from the beginning of this year until the end of August, with the main countries of origin being Syria, Afghanistan, Türkiye, and Iraq.
In addition, police findings reveal that one in four third-country nationals who enter Germany irregularly are smuggled.
In the first eight months of 2023 alone, the police said it registered more than 1,550 smuggling operations across the country, with 1,700 detected smugglers and more than 20,300 people being smuggled.
