Greece Using “Asylum Trick” To Fob Unwanted Migrants Off on Germany

Suspicions are growing that officials in Greece are deliberately issuing illegal migrants arriving there with refugee passports so they can travel by plane and stay in Germany instead.

Germany’s Federal Ministry this week responded to a written question by AfD Bundestag member Sebastian Münzenmaier, claiming just shy of 10,000 migrants “arrived from Greece by air … and identified themselves with Greek refugee identity cards”—which entitle them to move freely within the Schengen Area—in 2024. Bild says the actual figure is closer to 25,000, and that more migrants are arriving from Bulgaria, too, with Bulgarian refugee ID cards.

Many of the arrivals travel via budget airlines, which the AfD’s Christian Wirth said should have their licenses revoked in response.

Mit dem gleichen Flieger zurück. Notfalls den Fluggesellschaften die Lizenzen entziehen. Und endlich Vertragsverletzungsverfahren gegen alle EU-Staaten einleiten, die „ihre“ Flüchtlinge nach der Dublin-Verordnung nicht zurücknehmen. https://t.co/SqkHuSOusS

— Dr. Christian Wirth, MdB (@ChrWirthMdB) April 23, 2025

Münzenmaier told German paper Junge Freiheit that this “asylum trick” undermines the Schengen system and “must be stopped immediately.”

The federal government must urge the Greek authorities to end this scam. We are not Europe’s collective asylum system.

All asylum seekers flown in from Greece must be returned immediately.

As if to add to the confusion, reports say that some asylum seekers in Bulgaria later arrived in Germany by plane via Greece. Typically, the federal government has no data on such arrivals from Bulgaria—nor on those arriving from Romania.

The CDU’s North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister for Europe, Nathanael Liminski, last month told Bild that he would discuss the issue with the Greek government. But fresh reports on what one Greek security official described as a “new phenomenon” make it clear that any progress has yet to be made.