Since May, 550 people seeking asylum have been turned away at German borders out of 10,000 people being rejected at those borders in total. The new German government considers this policy a success story, but the issue remains divisive.
According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, over 10,000 people have been turned away at German borders since the introduction of stricter border controls in May, when the new coalition government took over leadership.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt praised this as a "highly effective measure."
However, there were only around 550 people who were coming to Germany to seek asylum, reports the weekly magazine Stern.
Dobrindt justifies turning away asylum seekers at all of Germany's physical borders since Germany is surrounded in every direction by neighboring states that are classified as safe countries.
Since asylum seekers are obliged to lodge their claims in the first safe country they reach, the interior minister believes that no one has to come all the way to Germany to find safety and claim asylum.
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Legality of asylum rejection on border under scrutiny
But the issue of rejecting asylum seekers on such grounds remains divisive, with the Administrative Court in Berlin already issuing a ruling against it, saying that under EU law, Germany nevertheless has an obligation to perform full asylum procedures with anyone who lodges a claim.
This would include an assessment of which country should be responsible for processing any individual case, including those under the EU's Dublin Regulation.
Dobrindt however highlighted that "(a)ll these measures are within the scope of national and European law," without specifying how long the border checks would remain in place for while praising these tactics as "highly effective."
"Compared to other European countries, we are no longer at the top of the list, but have slipped to third place among the destination countries for illegal migration," Dobrindt further stressed, adding that he considers this to be a "significant success."
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12 months of beefed up controls on German borders
The border checks had first been introduced as temporary measures in the summer of 2024, with international events in Europe such as the Olympic Games in Paris and the UEFA European Football Championship across Germany requiring additional security measures along borders.
In September 2024, the previous government instated such checks as a temporary measure to lower immigration numbers, which the new government extended and intensified in May.
In the last 12 months, over 30,000 people have been stopped in total from entering Germany this way -- although the majority are believed not to include potential asylum seekers.
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Dobrindt intends to stay the course
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt added that he would only be able to assess if and when the border security measures could be abandoned once the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) was fully implemented.
CEAS guidelines stipulate that asylum claimants will always be accepted by the first EU country where they applied for asylum or are proven to have entered the bloc. There would be no statute of limitations as there is with the Dublin Regulation right now.
CEAS rules must be adopted into the national laws of each EU member states by June 2026 at the latest.
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with KNA, epd