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The German Ministry of the Interior has on Friday announced the extension of the controls on its borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland until mid-March 2024 as Berlin continues to combat smuggling and limit irregular migration.
“The European law provides for this step-by-step approach. This means that the Federal Police can continue to flexibly deploy the entire bundle of stationary and mobile border police measures,” said German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.
“Our fight against the unscrupulous business of smugglers, who brutally put people’s lives at risk, is successful,” Faeser said. Since mid-October, the Federal Police have arrested around 340 smugglers as part of internal border controls, she added. According to her, the number of unauthorized entries nationwide has fallen by more than 60 percent since the temporary border controls were introduced in October, from over 20,000 in October to about 7,300 in November.
In late September, Germany imposed checks on its borders with Poland and the Czech Republic amid increasing pressure to stem the flow of asylum seekers. Some 204,000 people requested asylum in Germany in the first eight months of 2023, 77 percent more than in the year-earlier period. In mid-October, Switzerland was included in the extra border controls.
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