In the first three months of the year, 6,151 people were deported from Germany -- more than the average number of deportations seen per quarter in the past two years.
This figure was announced by the federal government in response to an inquiry brought by the Left Party (Die Linke) in the Bundestag, and reported by Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND).
In the year 2024 a total of about 20,100 people were deported from Germany. So if deportations continue at the currrent rate Germany could see over 24,000 in 2025.
The repatriations, carried out from January to March, took place under the previous federal government. But the conservative Christian Democrat and Christian Socialist (CDU/CSU) parties have announced ambitious plans to carry out even more repatriations going forward.
Why is Germany carrying out more deportations
The increase in deportations carried out in Germany comes in part as the effect of the Repatriation Act (Rückführungsverbesserungsgesetz), which came into force on February 27th, 2024.
Proponents of the law said it was aimed at tightening and enforcing deportation rules for people who had been convicted of criminal offences, but it also grants authorities more power to deport asylum seekers who had not committed offences.
The law also extended the amount of time people could be detained and granted police more power to search their accommodation and smartphones.
'Dublin transfers'
People were most frequently deported to Turkey, Georgia, France, Spain and Serbia.
A total of 157 people were deported to Iraq, and five to Iran.
According to the government report, around 1,700 of the deportations were so-called "Dublin transfers".
According to EU immigration rules, refugees must apply for asylum in the EU country where they first set foot on European territory. So when asylum seekers enter the country on land by first crossing through neighbouring countries, Germany can send them back to the first EU country where they were registered.
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High costs and 'brutal' procedures
Conservative leaders argue that repatriations save Germany money and resources that would be spent on social benefits for new arrivals, but the deportation process itself is also expensive.
According to the government report, more than a third of the deportations took place with expensive charter flights.
Most other deportees were sent on pre-scheduled flights. In total 5,216 deportations were carried out by air, 913 by land and 22 by sea.
Collective deportations to Pakistan were particularly expensive and time-consuming. The costs for this amounted to €462,000. Similarly, the costs for deportation flights to Ethiopia amounted to €418,000, and deportation flights to Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon totalled €380,000.
For many of these flights, however, the European border protection agency Frontex bore the costs.
The Left Party MP Clara Bünger criticised the way authorities carry out deportations.
She said she was aware of several cases in which the police acted "brutally and without any empathy".
"We are talking about families being torn apart ice-cold or about sick people being literally kidnapped from the hospital, and carted directly from there to the deportation flight," Bünger told RND.
With reporting by DPA.
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