The eastern German state of Saxony plans to deploy more police officers at its border with the Czech Republic and Poland in an attempt to put a stop to the increasing number of migrant smugglings.
Saxony police are collaborating with German federal police to crack down on migrant smugglers, State Interior Minister Armin Schuster said on Tuesday (August 29). Schuster said the state had seen a sharp rise in cross-border crimes recently with smugglings becoming more and more unscrupulous. Migrants with children are being abandoned in the middle of the night by smugglers, he said.
Riot police and Saxony border police are expected to carry out more controls, particularly in the next three months. Schuster, however, did not specify the number of state police officers to be sent near the border.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has repeatedly called for the stepping up of border controls. Only Germany's border in the state of Bavaria with Austria currently applies fixed border controls to everyone passing through.
Polish border sees migrant influx from Belarus
Faeser had met up with her Polish counterpart Mariusz Kaminski in May to discuss tightening border controls.
The minister said she wanted to see strengthened migration controls on the German-Polish border during a visit to the Polish border town in Swiecko. The tightening of checks would involve more controls on trains as well as on air traffic.
"I am certain that now, by strengthening border controls, this will lead to us now being able to cope jointly with the new new migration pressure together," Faeser said.
The Polish border guard has reported growing numbers of attempted irregular border crossings at the frontier with Belarus this year. The surge is believed to be part of Alexander Lukashenko's retaliation against European sanctions on Belarus.
Faeser said the increased migration pressure through Poland from Belarus would be handled by both countries "with the measures here at the border, but by both sides on either side of the border."
On May 10, federal and state governments at a national summit on refugees in Berlin had agreed to introduce fixed border controls with EU neighbors only if absolutely necessary.
Most of Germany's borders, including those with both countries, are currently only controlled with random spot checks and other measures.
With dpa