Almost 40,000 Migrants Avoided Deportation By Going Into Hiding

The Austrian Court of Auditors has slammed the government’s deportation policy and released figures that show almost 40,000 migrants went into hiding to avoid deportation from 2010 to 2014.

A total of 39,370 migrants are said to have gone underground to avoid deportations from 2010 to 2014, the Court of Auditors (RH) has claimed in a new report released Wednesday. During the four-year period, the number of people going into hiding had increased from 51 per cent to over 57 per cent casting doubt on the efficacy of the Austrian government’s deportation practices, reports Kronen Zeitung.  

The origins of the various migrants are divided with 27 per cent having come from Africa, 26 per cent from various European countries, and 20 per cent from Asia.

As a result of the report’s findings, the court has called for an increase in deportations and incentives to encourage migrants to return to their countries voluntarily. They have also proposed that Austria set up an online database that would allow authorities to track the whereabouts of migrants making them unable to evade deportation.

The report also highlighted the various inefficiencies in the deportation system and that a large amount of money is wasted on deportation centres that housed very few migrants. A detention centre at Vordernberg in the region of Styria was specifically mentioned as it had only ever been filled to 18 per cent of its total capacity.

Most of the deportations that have taken place in Austria over the period of 2010 to 2015 have occurred either directly at the border or at a police station near it. Once within Austria, however, deportations become much more difficult and in many cases failed deportations have resulted in severe consequences.

Earlier this year a young American woman who was studying and working as an au pair, invited a migrant from Gambia into her home after he had told her he was going to be deported by the government. After taking him in, the migrant repaid her kindness by strangling her to death in her apartment.

In a separate case, a migrant from Kenya, who was also supposed to have been deported, bludgeoned a woman to death with an iron bar in Vienna as she was heading to work. The man jumped from behind a market stall in the Brunnenmarkt in the migrant-heavy district of Ottakring, killing the woman in the early hours of the morning.

As a result of the murder, the Austrian government was considering increasing deportations for migrants who commit even minor crimes, but as the Court of Auditors report has shown, the system may need a revitalisation first.