Thousands of asylum-seekers in Germany have returned multiple times after deportation, according to a report in the German media. Those with entry bans often serve a few months in jail or are not arrested at all.

Germany: Thousands of refugees return after deportation, report says

Thousands of asylum-seekers in Germany have returned multiple times after deportation, according to a report in the German media. Those with entry bans often serve a few months in jail or are not arrested at all.

Thousands of migrants in Germany have applied for asylum multiple times and return to the country after having been deported, according to a report by German newspaper Die Welt am Sonntag.

There are nearly 5,000 asylum-seekers who have reapplied for asylum after being deported from Germany since 2012, according to the report, which cites official government figures. Some of the asylum-seekers willingly left Germany, knowing deportation was imminent. They then returned to Germany to submit another application for asylum, according to the report, published on Sunday, 1 December.

Asylum-seekers with entry bans ‘rarely jailed’

The numbers cited in the report indicate that for 1,023 asylum-seekers currently in Germany, this is the fourth time they have applied for asylum. For 294 it is their fifth, sixth or seventh time.

Asylum-seekers who have been deported and have entry bans are jailed for a few months for re-entering the country, according to the report. Arrests and longer sentences are rare.

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Germany receives hundreds of thousands of applications for asylum every year. Some 1.78 million people entered Germany to request asylum between 2010 and 2018, according to the German Office of Federal Statistics.

Authorities said earlier in November that they expected the number of applicants for asylum in 2019 to be lower than in previous years. In 2018, Germany logged around 160,000 new asylum applications. Hans-Eckard Sommer, the head of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), told the Bild am Sonntag that the office had received around 110,000 new applications as of end of October.

© DW

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