A Sunday afternoon in September: near the Bavarian border town of Furth im Wald, five Syrians are walking along a road that leads from the Czech Republic to Germany. A federal police patrol “snatches” her, as the press release says, and sends them back.
The Federal Police Inspectorate in Waldmünchen, which is responsible for intensified domestic searches along an 89-kilometer border with the Czech Republic, has had operations like this more often these weeks. And they are very welcome by the federal government. Because Syrians are also fleeing the war in their home country and are therefore entitled to protection. But Germany and the EU as a whole are currently trying to close the escape routes that these people also use to come.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has said several times that she is concerned about the increasing number of illegal migrants who recently came via the Balkan route. What was meant were not the soon to be millions of registered Ukrainians in Germany who are legally allowed to enter the EU on a tourist visa, but rather Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, who have recently increasingly applied for asylum. This Wednesday, Faeser met the interior ministers of the Western Balkan countries. The issue of illegal migration was high on the agenda.
There are now more intensive controls at the border with the Czech Republic
Because in addition to Turkey, which is currently cracking down on refugees in its own country in the upcoming election campaign and is thus forcing them to flee further, the minister has identified Serbia in particular as the culprit for the pressure on Europe’s borders. Due to some old visa agreements, people from India and Tunisia, for example, can enter Serbia without a visa. Some apparently made their way from there to Europe. “Serbia needs to change its visa practice, now and not someday,” Faeser said recently.
People in Serbia do not believe that the old visa agreements are the main problem of irregular migration to Europe. Nevertheless, the country gave in before the meeting and tightened the entry conditions for people from India, Burundi, Cuba and Tunisia. Those who come from there now have to show a paid return ticket with a fixed departure date.
The police actually stopped Tunisians and Indians at the border with Bavaria. The vast majority of illegal migrants came from Syria and Afghanistan. If these refugees make it to the EU, they generally have a good chance of receiving protection status. However, they must carry out the procedure according to the applicable distribution rules in the states in which they were first registered. The minister has taken practical steps to ensure that this is not too often Germany, by intensifying the search at the border with the Czech Republic and also extending border controls with Austria. Many people are thus prevented from entering Germany.
In August alone, the federal police inspection in Waldmünchen found a total of 325 people who had entered the country illegally, most of them Syrians. Three quarters of them were prevented from entering the country. The people were sent back to the Czech Republic, including the five Syrians. In the specific case, the people had not submitted an application for asylum, according to the statement from the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
Anyone who specifically asks for asylum must at least first be taken to a refugee shelter. Then it is checked where he was first registered and which country is responsible for the procedure. In Waldkirchen, this was the case for 18 percent of the people. “What happens at the borders ultimately takes place in a black box,” says Gisela Seidler, chairwoman of the Committee on Migration Law at the German Lawyers’ Association. It will not be possible to find out whether the Syrians have expressed that they want to apply for asylum in Germany. The lawyer calls for an end to border controls that violate European law.