There were over 127,000 “unauthorised entries” by migrants detected by German law enforcement in 2023, a considerable increase on previous years and the highest since the historic surge of the Europe Migrant Crisis in 2015.
German police have warned the nation should strengthen its border controls for as long as Europe’s external border remains unsecured, flows of migrants will continue across the Schengen open-frontier zone to the wealthy, high-welfare states of northern Europe.
The remarks accompany new Federal migration figures seen by German broadsheet Die Welt which notes there were 127,088 “unauthorised border crossings” in 2023.
The figure is up 38 per cent in just one year from 92,000 in 2022, and is even higher than arrivals in 2016, the second year of the Europe Migrant Crisis. The only year in modern German history with higher levels of illegals, Welt notes was the first year of the crisis when 217,000 “irregular border crossings” took place in 2015.
Chairman of the German Police Union Heiko Teggatz said the figures proved the Euro open borders Schengen system is broken and said Germany had to now play “catch up” on its own border controls. A spokesman for the leftist governing SPD party disagreed, however, and was cited by Welt as having said the surging number of illegals detected on the border merely proved their government’s border plans were working well, as otherwise they’d be undetected illegals.
The left-wingers’ comments came with a not-so-subtle attack on the tone of the debate though, saying when debating illegal migrants Germans should remember the country “depends on immigration”. They said: “In all of this, we should always remember that we in Germany depend on immigration to secure our prosperity, so the most important thing for us is that those who can contribute find their way to us through regular channels”.
That Western nations depend on mass migration to survive and thrive is an important shibboleth of globalist governments, but one that is coming under increasing criticism. As reported, the presumed incoming Prime Minister of the Netherlands Geert Wilders and Tesla billionaire and the world’s richest man Elon Musk exchanged views on the subject this week, arguing that relying on migration to grow GDP also erodes society and destroys local culture.
As well as illegal border crossings detected, the figures also showed a rising number of people found to be already living in Germany without permission — because they lacked the right papers, they were visa overstayers, or had already been ordered to leave by the government but had refused. Police had arrested 48,930 people in 2023, close to a doubling of the 2021 figure of 27,734.
Teggatz said that “there are now more than 350,000 people who have no prospect of staying in Germany and whose deportations are suspended. Around 50,000 of them are even obliged to leave the country immediately”, but he lamented the left-wing government was refusing to take action on the matter.