Germany has witnessed a new record in the number of refugees and asylum seekers living in the country, while other countries in Europe are also seeing a surge in newcomers.
According to Info Migrants, a total of 3.26 million people are registered in Germany’s Central Register of Foreigners, 111,000 higher than at the beginning of the year.
Regardless of the government’s efforts to introduce countermeasures and combat irregular migration, refugees and migrants continue to use the same routes to reach Europe as they have in the past.
Conflicts, especially those in Ukraine and Afghanistan, are considered to be the main reason for this surge in refugees and migrants. The number of war refugees from Ukraine has surpassed the one-million mark, with an additional 29,000 refugees coming just recently.
The Central Register of Foreigners records show that more than 279,098 people are required to leave the country, but they are being tolerated due to special circumstances.
About 80 per cent of those who are ordered to leave the country have a toleration permit or Duldung, which enables them to not be deported at present.
Other people are being tolerated due to them taking training or employment in Germany, which excuses them from being deported, but they remain excluded from obtaining asylum seekers’ rights. About a quarter of the tolerated persons in Germany do not have valid travel documents or cannot get these from the embassies of their countries.
On the other hand, German politicians are looking into options to reduce the number of migrants in the country. Recently, Friedrich Merz from the opposition party proposed to expand the list of safe countries so that more rejected asylum seekers can be deported to their home countries. The countries that Merz suggests including on the safe countries list are Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, India and Moldova.
However, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock does not agree with the initiative to expand this list, saying such suggestions should not be mixed with foreign policy as they are mainly of a domestic nature.
The current list of safe countries of origin includes EU countries, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Ghana and Senegal.
The EU Agency for Asylum (EUAA) has reported that the number of asylum applications has jumped by 25 per cent. EUAA also reveals that 87,000 asylum applications were submitted during this time.
The agency pointed out that the large number of asylum applications is driven by the influx of migrants from different countries seeking protection, such as Syrians, Afghans and Turkish nationals seeking refugee in Germany.
