Fed-Up With European Bureaucracy, Asylum Seekers Return Home

Migrants in the German capital of Berlin are fed up of waiting for their asylum claim and an increasing number are simply heading back to where they came from.

The State Office for Refugee Affairs (LAF) in Berlin has announced that more and more migrants are choosing to voluntarily repatriate to their countries of origin. The reason for the surge in re-migration is down to the Berlin government’s notoriously long wait times when it comes to processing asylum claims.

The number of migrants leaving Berlin has increased over the last year by over 80 per cent Die Welt reports.

Of those returning, migrants from Iraq are the most common, making up 25 per cent Afghanis are second most common, at 20 per cent.

The origin of the migrants is very similar to those who have chosen to go on holiday back to their home countries at German tax payer expense, as revealed earlier this week.  Both the willingness to return, either on holiday, or permanently, has led many to question what the migrants were fleeing in the first place when they came to Germany.

The LAF claims that the reasons for the migrants wanting to return to their home countries can be varied as some become severely homesick, and others realize that the tales told by people smugglers about Germany and Europe being a paradise are simply not true. According to the agency one of the biggest drivers is the lethargic bureaucracy in Berlin which often takes months to settle asylum claims and leads to migrants becoming frustrated that their case isn’t being looked into.

The case isn’t the first instance where long wait times have frustrated migrants to the point of wanting to leave. In Denmark and Sweden thousands of migrants have been leaving the two Scandinavian countries because they increasingly realize that the long wait times are an indicator that their asylum claims will ultimately be rejected and there is little chance of them finding work.

Some migrants, including Syrians, have gone to the great length of tasking the same human traffickers who got them to Europe, to help return them to the Middle East. The report caused quite a stir with many who claim that the migrants, many who claim to be fleeing danger and war, were really just shopping around for a better economic situation.

Many of the Syrians who wanted to go back even admit that they were in no real danger where they were in Syria with one  man saying, “I want to go to Syria and continue my studies at the art school. Even if they open borders, I will still go. I am very angry with the Europeans because of the situation in which we live.”