Berlin/Erfurt (dpa/th) – Last year, Thuringia deported 238 foreigners who were required to leave the country. Another 140 people left Bavaria voluntarily in 2022 with financial support from the federal government, according to the federal government’s response to a question from the left in the Bundestag. The deportations of rejected asylum seekers have been relatively constant in Thuringia over the past three years – according to federal government figures, there were 220 in 2020 and 226 in 2021.
The number of deportations – in Thuringia always a point of contention between the red-red-green minority government and the opposition – was lower last year than in populous Saxony with 565, but higher than in Brandenburg with 167. It was in the neighboring state of Saxony-Anhalt at 345.
The migration policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group, Stefan Schard, spoke of an alarmingly low number of deportations. The state government must act and return more people to their home countries without a reason for asylum, Schard demanded.
According to the federal government, around 5,350 people who were obliged to leave the country with rejected asylum applications were in Thuringia at the end of December, of which more than 4,700 had a toleration. The number of those who were required to leave the country without being tolerated was given as 623. Among the rejected asylum seekers, people from Iraq made up the largest group with 18 percent, followed by Afghans with 12 percent and Russians with 8 percent.
According to the federal government, a total of 12,945 people were deported in Germany last year. With about one in four of these deportations, most of them came from the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia. However, around two thirds of the planned deportations failed last year. As can be seen from the answer to a question from the Union faction in the Bundestag, 23,337 deportations could not be carried out. Reasons included canceled flights or the absence of the people concerned on the day of departure.
