In the past year, significantly more people came to Baden-Württemberg illegally via Switzerland. The number of unreported cases is also high. The latest numbers should be grist to the mill of those who have been calling for stronger resistance for some time.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – The number of asylum seekers who come to Baden-Württemberg via the Balkan route and the Swiss border without permission has increased significantly in the past year. Four times more people crossed the border into Germany illegally from non-EU countries than in the previous year, the federal police in Stuttgart said on Thursday on request.
While 2512 people were still counted in 2021, the number rose to 10,472 in 2022. At the end of the year and last January, the monthly numbers fell again somewhat, but they are still many times higher in a year-on-year comparison. The federal police did not provide any information on a possible number of unreported cases.
However, the entry of people has recently been increasingly prevented. In January, 1,065 people were rejected by the Federal Police at the border, compared to 698 two months earlier. “Both people who traveled via the Central Mediterranean route and people who traveled via the Balkan route are identified,” said a spokesman. The Balkan route in particular was used much more frequently in the second half of last year.
Illegal entries have been a bone of contention in the cross-border debate for a long time, but also in the discussion between the federal government and the green-black state government. Only about a week ago, Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) expressed his dissatisfaction with the way illegal border crossings from Switzerland to Baden-Württemberg are being handled. Strobl said that he had already asked Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) in 2022 to hold talks with the Swiss government. The CDU and the German police union have also been demanding tougher political action against the neighboring country for months because of overburdened districts.
Among other things, the fact that Switzerland had sent hundreds of arriving migrants to Basel, on the border with Germany and France, caused astonishment last autumn. German politicians had accused the Confederates of “waving through” refugees.
Last December, Germany and Switzerland finally agreed to step up police controls at their common border to combat illegal migration. Joint police patrols are used on trains traveling from Switzerland to Germany. In addition, it was agreed that people smugglers should be combated more intensively by means of cross-border searches. The two neighboring countries had already decided on an action plan in 2016, the measures of which are now to be expanded.
