07/24/2025July 24, 2025
German police demand stricter airport checks after report highlights ‘secondary migration’
Germany’s Police Union (GdP) has called for tighter immigration checks at German airports after a media report highlighted thousands of cases of “secondary migration,” or asylum claims being made in despite asylum having already been granted elsewhere in the .
“The federal police control bridges, motorways and major roads on the borders with and , checking for being made by migrants and asylum seekers,” said a spokesman. “But there’s a loophole at airports.”
The comments came after a report by Germany’s Funke media group revealed that around 8,000 recognized asylum seekers had applied for asylum in Germany between January and May this year, despite having already been granted asylum in which is also in the EU.
The Funke group obtained the figures from the German Interior Ministry, which said that a total of 26,000 such secondary applications had been made in 2024.
According to EU law governing in the bloc’s , recognized asylum seekers may spend up to 90 days in another EU country, but may not make another application for asylum there.
“People who have been granted protection in Greece must make use of that protection there,” said a ministry statement.
In April, Germany’s Federal Administrative Court in ruled that single, healthy migrants who are able to work could legally be deported to Greece, where the court said they would face no extreme hardship. The Greek government, however, has said it will not take back refugees who make asylum claims in Germany, even if they’ve first made claims in Greece.
Refugee aid organizations continue to speak of an “inhumane situation” for refugees in Greece. “No bed, no bread, no soap,” one such group told the Funke group, a “drastic formula” which “has not changed in years.”
The post Germany updates: Poland to extend border checks appeared first on Deutsche Welle.
