Border controls are not actually planned in the Schengen area. However, the German Interior Minister ordered it for several reasons. Now there are figures for the first nine months of the year.
During checks at the German land borders, the Federal Police registered 53,410 unauthorized entries in the first nine months of this year. 28,321 people were rejected at land borders nationwide, as “Bild am Sonntag” reports. The numbers were confirmed to the German Press Agency by the Federal Police.
The federal police arrested 1,195 smugglers and registered 1,088 smuggling operations. The authority pointed out that controls at airports and seaports were not taken into account and that the number at land borders could still change, for example due to subsequent registrations.
From January through September, officers arrested people in a total of 7,783 cases for whom open arrest warrants were executed. The offenses previously committed include unpaid fines, serious criminal offenses and failure to serve imprisonment. In some cases there were also international searches.
According to “Bild am Sonntag”, the most rejections occurred at the borders with Switzerland (9,113 people), Poland (7,862), Austria (5,468) and at the French border (2,350). The most rejected were Ukrainians (5,935 people), Syrians (4,708) and Afghans (2,396). Officials identified 1,482 deported migrants who wanted to re-enter despite the ban.
The police speak of unauthorized entry if a foreigner wants to cross the border without a valid residence permit. Rejections are particularly possible if someone does not express a request for asylum or if the person concerned is temporarily banned from re-entering the country. This is the case, for example, if someone has previously been deported, or for people who come from so-called safe countries of origin if their asylum application has already been rejected as “obviously unfounded”.
Border controls are not actually planned in the Schengen area. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) justified the order of stationary controls at all land borders from mid-September on the grounds of irregular migration and protection against Islamist terrorists and cross-border crime. The borders with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg were affected by the expansion. The border with France had already been checked because of the Olympic Games in Paris.
Controls have been in place at the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland since mid-October last year, and they were introduced at the German-Austrian land border in autumn 2015. During the European Football Championship in Germany, checks were carried out at all German land borders at times in the summer.
Stationary border controls are a prerequisite for rejections, as this measure is only possible directly at the border. Pushbacks of asylum seekers for whose procedure another EU country is responsible are also possible in areas close to the border, but here the requirements and effort are significantly more extensive.
The federal police want to publish a balance sheet on the overall figures and the effect of the border controls on November 1st.