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Asylum deportations set to double in 2015

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Asylum deportations set to double in 2015
A family being escorted to a car on the way to the airport in Leipzig in November. Photo: DPA

Almost twice as many people have been deported from Germany in 2015 so far after having their asylum applications rejected compared with the previous year.

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By the end of November, there had been 18,363 deportations of failed asylum seekers, Interior Ministry documents seen by DPA showed.

That was almost twice as many as 2014, when there were 10,884 deportations during the entire year.

And some states were far more active than others.

Bavaria deported more than three times as many people this year as last year, at 3,643 compared with 1,007 in 2014.

And Hesse was close to a factor of three as well, sending 2,306 people back to their countries of origin versus 829 last year.

The only state to see fewer deportations than last year was Thuringia, at 152 in 2015 compared with 234 in 2014.

Germany's federal states, which are responsible for processing asylum applications, drastically stepped up deportation efforts over the course of the year in a bid to show concerned voters they had flows of refugees into the country under control.

That's why in the first four months of the year there were only 4,508 deportations, with the figure ramping up drastically as time went on.

In a speech last week, Chancellor Angela Merkel balanced a call for her party to back her refugee policy with a commitment to remove those denied asylum, saying that the country must prioritize those in greatest need.

There are now more than one million asylum applications recorded in German government computer systems, a Bavarian official confirmed recently.

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