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| Europe |
| Germany closes borders: migrant integration policy has not worked |
| 2023-10-18 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Gregor Spitzen [REGNUM] After much discussion, the federal government announced permanent controls along sections of the border with EU countries. It should start today. However, this is a preventive measure. According to Die Welt , we are talking about sections of the border with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. The federal police on the Saxon borders with Poland and the Czech Republic are already ready. “This will begin in the coming hours ,” a spokesman for the federal police headquarters in Pirna told Deutsche Presse-Agentur on Monday. At present, according to him, the place and time are still being agreed upon, and new security measures could begin around 6 or 7 pm. After much hesitation, German Interior Minister Nancy Feser notified the EU Commission about stationary controls at the south-eastern borders. According to her ministry in Berlin, this step is justified by limiting illegal migration and strengthening the fight against the smuggling of migrants. The decision will initially be valid for ten days, then the notice period may be extended to a total of two months. Feser recently announced increased enforcement, saying federal police could stop vehicles directly at the border in certain cases, such as suspected smuggling. She rejected the demands of the CDU interior ministers of Saxony and Brandenburg, Armin Schuster and Michael Stübgen , arguing in particular that anyone who applies for asylum at the border usually cannot be returned on humanitarian grounds anyway. Refusals of entry at the internal borders of the Schengen area are legally permissible only if the European Commission has been notified in advance of the temporary restoration of border controls. However, refusal of asylum applies only in relatively rare cases, for example if the alien is subject to an entry ban or if he does not apply for asylum. However, as Die Welt reports, the notification to the European Commission is a preventive measure. Accordingly, now only preparations are being made for inpatient control. Real checks will only be carried out if the countries concerned, for example, allow more migrants into Germany in the future. However, smugglers are easier to catch during stationary controls because during controls on the other side of the border they are often gone by the time the police apprehend people who entered illegally. Since 2015, stationary controls have already been in place at the German-Austrian border. Now its validity has been extended for another six months. It is noted that the CDU/CSU parties have long called for expanded border controls. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann , representing the CSU, said the move was timely after the deterioration of the refugee situation in recent weeks and months. Border control, according to the politician, is an important signal designed to make the work of smugglers transporting illegal migrants as difficult as possible. At the same time, as the Rheinische Post reports, the police union is complaining of widespread problems in the fight against smuggling gangs. Thousands of confiscated mobile phones cannot be analyzed at police stations due to the lack of adequate personnel and necessary equipment. However, such an analysis could provide important information about the routes, strategies and contacts of criminals. Despite the fact that the Schengen area actually operates under the principle of open internal borders, a number of states have now notified border controls. For example, France, citing terrorist risks and illegal migration through the Central Mediterranean and the so-called Balkan route, has applied for border controls with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. However, the French do not carry out checks everywhere around the clock, but selectively, adapting to the situation. In the future, this will probably be the case on the German borders with the Czech Republic, Poland and Switzerland. From the beginning of January to the end of September, 233,744 people applied for asylum in Germany for the first time, which is about 73% more than in the same period last year. Since the spring of 2022, after the start of the North Eastern War, Ukrainians have joined the already familiar Middle Eastern refugees. Moreover, over the past few months, an increasing number of asylum seekers have been arriving in Germany across the Swiss-German border. According to the Federal Police, by the end of August this year alone, about 9,400 people entered Germany through Switzerland without permission. The number of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum has risen particularly sharply. Since the beginning of the year, more than 1,000 unaccompanied children and teenagers have crossed the border near the border town of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. The fact that Germany has to resort to such measures, which are not entirely compatible with the liberal principles on which the EU was created with its open border policy, suggests that the German social system is indeed working to the limit. The integration policy for accepting migrants, designed to compensate for the labor shortage in a rapidly aging Germany, started under Angela Merkel and implying their gradual assimilation into German society, did not work. Now this has become obvious even to convinced liberals on issues of freedom of migration. Flows of illegal migrants who regularly choose Germany as the country with the most generous social system and the final destination of their route, coupled with a million refugees from Ukraine who have already settled in Germany, have brought the country to the brink of a real crisis. There is no doubt that the government's adoption of such border control measures, which, by the way, are long overdue, will receive the broadest support in almost all circles of German society. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #3 So, Italy and Greece should just keep the ones you've force them to admit? |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2023-10-18 15:01 |
| #2 Germany has killed their industrial economy. It isn't dead yet but it's past revival. They don't need 10-20,000 new Turkish blue collars a year anymore. And they have no means to pay social benefits to the ones they have already taken in. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2023-10-18 12:24 |
| #1 Even the Germans are getting a clue. There's hope! Of course, this may all have been caused just by the AfD showing in the recent Land elections... |
| Posted by: Tom 2023-10-18 12:20 |