After having sermonised for years on the virtues of open borders, German government officials have found that measures to control illegal migration are having a positive effect.
Increased ‘temporary’ checks at the country’s land borders with the Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland and Austria were supposed to come to an end last month. They were extended until June 15th, and are now to be continued until (at least) December 15th.
Temporary border closings are allowed “as a last resort” in the Schengen area under certain circumstances, though the leftist majority in the European Parliament last fall attempted to thwart the rights of sovereign member states to control their borders.
Leftist Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is reported to have been “sceptical” about the extension of border checks. That’s hardly surprising, given that late last year, she was calling for checks on illegal migrants to be significantly curtailed.
But, as iROZHLAS puts it, Faeser now “boasts” that the measures are working—in a remarkable gap between rhetoric and reality—and is bound to be delighted by the thought that this could add a few points to her approval rating (even if the extension was pushed not by her but by regional-level interior ministers).
Figures from Faeser’s department show that 37,600 unauthorised entries have been recorded at the borders with the Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland, and Austria since just October last year—that’s well over 5,000 each month. Around 23,000 of the illegal migrants were turned around at the border and prevented from entering Germany. While chalked up as a success for Faeser, that still means 23,000 illegal migrants inside the Schengen area, courtesy of the open borders policies the EU elites have touted over the past decade.
Faeser boasted on Wednesday, May 29th, that in the same period, “the federal police have detained 920 smugglers as part of internal border controls.” She has also talked up the importance of “temporary [border] controls” during the European Championships football season, “to stop potential violent offenders at an early stage.”
Officials in Romania and Moldova have at the same time been working together to disrupt the smugglers behind much of the mass movement of illegal migrants. Earlier this week, a joint operation saw four drivers and an alleged leader of a human trafficking network—which has brought more than 100 people into the Schengen area for up to €5,000 per person since 2019—arrested. Two of these have already made “full confessions” about their smuggling operation.
But it doesn’t take much wit to understand that the fall of one smuggling gang quickly leads to the rise of another—and that if Europe really wants to get serious about illegal migration, it must deal not with the supply but the demand.
