Significant Increase in Rejections at German Borders Raises Legal Concerns

In 2023, significantly more people were rejected at German borders than in previous years. According to the left, there are “clear indications that the federal police are illegally rejecting people seeking protection”.

Since the second half of 2022, the federal police have rejected significantly more foreigners at the borders with Austria and Switzerland than before. On the other hand, there were hardly any rejections at the border with Poland, where most unauthorized entries are currently being recorded.

According to a response from the federal government to a question from the left-wing faction’s refugee policy spokeswoman, Clara Bünger, 3,063 unauthorized entries were registered at the Swiss border in the first quarter of this year. In three out of four cases, there were rejections. According to the answer, which is available to the German Press Agency, more than half (around 62 percent) of the 3,674 people whose unauthorized entry was noticed by the federal police and the border police authorities on the border with Austria were rejected. According to the federal government, there were only three rejections at the border with Poland.

In order to prevent people from entering Germany without permission, foreigners can be rejected directly at the border – at the land border, the sea border or at airports – or they can be pushed back to another country as illegal immigrants. Last year, 25,538 people were rejected at the German border, significantly more than in previous years. On the border with Austria, the numbers rose significantly in the summer, and on the Swiss border this development began in October. In the first quarter of this year there were a total of 4681 rejections.

At around 16,000, the number of unauthorized entries detected in the first quarter of this year was significantly lower than in the last quarter of 2022 (around 30,000 unauthorized entries). According to observers, this could be related, among other things, to even stricter controls by Poland on the border with Belarus, as well as to the improved border police cooperation agreed by Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) with Switzerland, in particular through controls on trains on Swiss territory. Stationary controls are currently only available at the land border with Austria.

According to a government response to an earlier request from the left-wing faction, attempted entry without a valid travel document or an entry ban are among the reasons that most often lead to rejection. “There are clear indications that the federal police are illegally rejecting people seeking protection, especially at the border with Austria,” said Bünger. The Federal Ministry of the Interior must investigate this, she demanded. dpa