Migration taz
Lowest October value since 2011: There haven't been so few new asylum arrivals for a long time
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) sells his isolation measures as the cause. But they are probably not the only factor. more...
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afp/taz | The number of new asylum arrivals in Germany fell last month to its lowest October value since 2011. A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior confirmed this to the AFP news agency on Wednesday. Accordingly, the number of initial asylum applications and new arrivals as part of the asylum procedure was 5,707 people in October - a decrease of 40 percent compared to the previous year and almost 70 percent compared to 2024.
It was also the lowest number for an October since 2011. The Bild newspaper first reported the numbers. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) spoke of a turnaround: “We are successfully pushing back illegal migration,” he told the newspaper. Now it's about "sustaining this development in the long term" and ordering, managing and controlling "illegal migration", "together with our partners at the European level".
The federal government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) further tightened migration policy at the start of its term in office in May 2025. Dobrindt ordered increased border controls with neighboring countries and rejections, some of which were illegal. Since then, the number of unauthorized entries has fallen significantly, and asylum applications have also fallen.
Since then, the numbers have also fallen across the EU. The German controls cannot therefore be the only cause of the decline. Other factors are probably the tightened controls at the EU's external borders and the end of the Syrian war as an important cause of flight.
The number of unauthorized entries at the German borders reached a new annual low of 3,270 cases in October, as the federal police announced on Wednesday. In September the number was 3,668. It is also the lowest level in over five years: the last time there were lower monthly values was in the months of May, February and January of 2021.
In the first ten months of the current year, the Federal Police detected 40,193 unauthorized entries at Germany's land, air and sea borders. This was 12,745 or around 24 percent fewer than in the same period last year.
According to the Federal Police, since the black-red coalition came into power in May 2025, 47,551 people have been turned back and 2,432 have been prevented from crossing the border due to a re-entry ban.
In Germany, controls have been taking place at the national borders with all neighboring countries since September 2024. In previous years, these had already been introduced to Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland due to the migration situation.