'Our measures are working': German asylum claims fall during border checks

Police arrest dozens of traffickers and turn away 1,400 migrants in Schengen border crackdown

Germany restored entry checks on all of its Schengen land borders last month amid voter anger over migration and Islamist extremism. EPA

Germany has declared its stricter border policies “are working” after new migration figures showed fewer people claiming asylum.

In the first report since Germany introduced emergency border patrols, the number of asylum claims fell to 19,700 last month, the fewest for September since 2021. Nationwide checks came into force on September 16 after a series of attacks and a voter backlash over illegal migration.

Guards patrolling the usually open Dutch and Belgian borders said they intercepted about 200 illegal migrants in the first two weeks of checks. In one case, a Moroccan citizen suspected of a robbery was caught after being banned from the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden.

Across Germany, police said dozens of suspected traffickers were arrested and 1,400 people were turned away. The volume of 179,000 asylum claims submitted this year amounts to a 23 per cent drop compared to the same period last year.

Syrians lodged more than a third of last month's asylum claims, as Germany explores ways to deport people to the country for the first time since 2012. About 50,000 people from Syria are awaiting the outcome of asylum applications in Germany.

“Our measures are working, and we will keep taking action to limit illegal migration,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who ordered the six-month border checks. She said Germany plans to enforce new EU rules “as quickly as possible” that would allow some asylum claims to be summarily rejected.

Sceptics said the figures remained high by historical standards. The policies of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government “simply are not having enough effect to help the overstretched municipalities”, said centre-right opposition MP Marc Heinrichmann.

EU debate

EU interior ministers will consider whether to tighten rules further at a meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday after the Netherlands and Austria put proposals on the table for “more effective returns” to migrants' home countries.

A working document believed to have the backing of more than half the EU's 27 member states says the bloc should embark on a “paradigm shift towards obligations and duties” on migrants, in which flouting border rules “must have consequences”.

It said EU members “must be empowered to carry out effective returns of illegally staying migrants”, under new rules that would “make extensive interpretation unnecessary” by judges at the EU's Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

The German government cited legal concerns in rejecting opposition demands to turn away asylum seekers at the border. One German court rejected a Syrian's protection claim because his home region of Hasakah was not as dangerous as elsewhere, but the precedent has not been applied nationally.

A first deportation from Germany to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan took place in August, carrying 28 people who officials said were convicted of serious crimes. About 2,400 Afghans sought asylum in the latest monthly figures, as well as 2,800 people from Turkey.

Germany's nationwide border checks mean passport checks now take place on about two thirds of Europe's “open” Schengen crossings, covering more than 11,000km of border. The justifications include Islamist terrorism, illegal migration and the fallout of the Israel-Gaza war.

The German checks were brought in soon after a Syrian asylum seeker who should have been in Bulgaria under EU rules confessed to carrying out a deadly knife attack in Solingen. A week after the stabbings, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won a state election for the first time.