Germany counts on fewer refugees in 2019

Germany expects to receive no more than 145 thousand applications for refugees. However, only 35-38% of applications receive approval.

Germany is projected to receive fewer asylum applications in 2019 than last year. This was reported by DW on Sunday, November 3. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees expects that by the end of the year no more than 145 thousand applications will be submitted, said the Head of the department, Hans-Ekard Sommer.

To date, about 110 thousand applications for asylum in Germany have been filed. Despite the fact that the numbers have decreased compared to 2018, Sommer noted that there are still too many requests.

“Only 35-38 percent of all applications are approved. This means that almost two-thirds of people arriving in Germany have no reason to obtain asylum”, – the FORM chief said.

Since 2017, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has the right to analyze information from migrants’ mobile phones if there are doubts about their origin.

In 2018, the agency gained access to data carriers in 11,400 people, in 3300 cases a detailed analysis of the information received was conducted. This helped confirm the origin of 33 percent of asylum seekers, and only 2% of the cases showed that migrants gave false information about themselves.

Hans-Ekard Sommer recalled that information obtained from data processing from mobile phones of asylum seekers, in some cases, is transmitted to the state security agencies. According to the Head of FORM, many successful counter-terrorism operations were made possible thanks to the information transmitted by his department.

Previously a truck with dozens of illegal immigrants was detained in France. The truck did not seem to arouse suspicion from the police. He was stopped for a routine check on the autobahn near the border with Italy.

It was also reported that a group of refugee children were found in a freight train in Slovakia. Nine of them were from Afghanistan and two more from Pakistan. There were no adults with them.