Border with Upper Austria

Bavaria sends every second migrant back

The police in Bavaria are stepping up checks at the borders with Austria. This September alone, 26 smugglers and 577 migrants were stopped in just two weeks.

(Bild: Pressefoto Scharinger, Krone KREATIV)

"Back!" - Bavaria does not let every refugee into the country who makes it to the border. In Upper Austria alone, almost every second detected illegal migration attempt is stopped and the people are sent back to the Inn and Mühlviertel regions. Migrants coming from the Czech Republic, on the other hand, are often allowed to stay.

The Bavarian police continue to carry out checks at the border with Upper Austria and the Czech Republic. And the Germans are also getting serious about refoulement. More than half of the attempts to cross the border illegally end with the Bavarians sending the migrants and refugees back to Upper Austria. Specifically, this year - the statistics of the Federal Police provide the figures up to the end of August - 698 foreigners were not even allowed into the country by the Bavarians, out of a total of 1703 illegal crossings. A comparison with the same period last year shows that the flow of refugees is decreasing or that the measures at the EU's external borders are working after all. From January to August 2023, 3439 illegal migrants were stopped at the border between Upper Austria and Bavaria and 1234 of them were sent back to the Inn or Mühlviertel region. This means that a good one in three refugees were turned away last year.

"Waiting room Upper Austria"
The returned migrants are taken over by the authorities in Upper Austria and treated as if they had applied for asylum here. However, the people may not be detained. "Upper Austria must not become a waiting room for migrants rejected at the Bavarian border," says Florian Hiegelsberger, Regional Director of the regional ÖVP party. This is because most of the people turned back do not have Upper Austria as their destination country, but Germany.

Hardly any returns to the Czech Republic
The figures for apprehensions by the Bavarian authorities at the border with the Czech Republic are interesting. This year, Bavarian police officers apprehended 110 illegal crossings and only returned ten refugees. In the same period last year, only 82 illegal migrants from the Czech Republic were stopped - and not a single one was sent back.