migration
Initial asylum applications: Highest value since September 2016
Record year? So far in 2023, 267,384 initial applications for asylum have been made. photo
© Patrick Pleul/dpa
Record: 31,887 initial applications for asylum were made in Germany in October – the highest number since 2016. A development that could continue next year.
The number of new asylum seekers in In October of this year, Germany reached 31,887, the highest number since 2016. In September, the number of initial applications was last higher at more than 70,000, as a spokesman for the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) said in Nuremberg.
So far in 2023, 267,384 initial applications for asylum have been received. This means that 2023 will also be the year with the most asylum applications since the record year of 2016. At that time, 722,370 initial applications for asylum were made.
Where do most applicants come from?
According to the Federal Office’s statistics, most applicants for asylum in 2023 so far came from Syria with 83,336, followed by Turkey with 45,086 and Afghanistan with 43,958.
The domestic policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Alexander Throm, criticized: “This massive migration crisis was foreseeable for a long time, and yet the traffic lights never took countermeasures.” The development will most likely continue next year, “since the Federal Chancellor’s decisions will not change anything,” said the CDU politician.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had worked out a compromise with the prime ministers of the federal states that, among other things, aimed to reduce the incentives for asylum seekers. When financing the costs, the federal government will in future pay a flat rate of 7,500 euros per asylum seeker per year, no longer the total amount of currently 3.7 billion euros.