Illegal Migrant Arrivals Highest Since 2015 Migrant Crisis, Says Germany

There were over 127,000 “unauthorised entries” by migrants detected by German law enforcement in 2023, a considerable increase on previous years and the highest since the historic surge of the Europe Migrant Crisis in 2015.

German police have warned the nation should strengthen its border controls for as long as Europe’s external border remains unsecured, flows of migrants will continue across the Schengen open-frontier zone to the wealthy, high-welfare states of northern Europe.

The remarks accompany new Federal migration figures seen by German broadsheet Die Welt which notes there were 127,088 “unauthorised border crossings” in 2023.

The figure is up 38 per cent in just one year from 92,000 in 2022, and is even higher than arrivals in 2016, the second year of the Europe Migrant Crisis. The only year in modern German history with higher levels of illegals, Welt notes was the first year of the crisis when 217,000 “irregular border crossings” took place in 2015.

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As well as illegal border crossings detected, the figures also showed a rising number of people found to be already living in Germany without permission — because they lacked the right papers, they were visa overstayers, or had already been ordered to leave by the government but had refused. Police had arrested 48,930 people in 2023, close to a doubling of the 2021 figure of 27,734.

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