‘Not found’: Half of ‘deported’ refugees never left Germany, report reveals
The number of unsuccessful deportations from Germany has increased by more than 200 percent, as every second deportable migrant stayed in the country by not appearing for their expulsion appointment.
An internal evaluation by the federal police found that, as of the end of May, only 11,100 scheduled deportations had been successful out of a planned 23,900, according to the report by Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten.
Some 11,500 refugees were listed as “not found” on their appointed day, with the remaining 1,300 cases abandoned for various other reasons. Around 150 people stayed because pilots refused to take them, and in more than 500 cases, deportation was stopped because of “active or passive resistance.”
The highest level of deportation resistance came from immigrants from Nigeria and Guinea, with 60 people each, followed by Somalia, Syria, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Morocco, Iraq and Eritrea, according to German federal police.
“It creates an enormous amount of work for the federal police that every second person to be deported is ultimately not delivered by the responsible state and local authorities,” Ernst Walter, chairman of the German police union, told Welt am Sonntag. He added that the only way to prevent them from disappearing is to “make much greater use of deportation detention.”
Germany has seen an influx of more than 1.6 million asylum seekers since 2014, mainly from the Middle East and Africa. Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing increasing political pressure from the public to stem the flow, as estimated migrant-related costs reach €78 billion ($91 billion).
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