Germany: Fifty-Seven Percent of Migrants Arrive Without Passports

Turkish citizens are the third largest group of asylum seekers, despite coming from a safe country.

More than half percent of all migrants who claimed asylum in Germany in the first five months of this year had no form of identification, according to an article by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. The share of people without documentation (57%) is much higher than last year, when 48% of arrivals claimed to have no passport or an identity card.

Lack of documentation and the unwillingness of countries of origin to take back their citizens is the main reason why Germany is unable to deport many failed asylum seekers and migrant criminals. One country of origin which stands out is Turkey: despite Turkey being a safe country, a NATO and OECD member state, i.e. Turkish citizens have no reason for escape, they are the third largest group of asylum seekers—after Syrians and Afghans—in Germany.

While it is plausible for refugees from war-torn countries to flee their homes without any official documents, or to not even have any in the first place, it is surprising that 57.5% of Turks had no form of identification to show German authorities. The fact that there are a large number of Turkish citizens without any identity papers is “absurd,” according to the official who spoke to Welt am Sonntag. He said that under Turkish law every citizen is obliged to have an identity card.

While only one in ten Turkish asylum claims are approved, rejected applicants are seldom deported. “As long as we can’t present a passport to the Turkish side, nothing will work,” an official told the newspaper. As conservative German publication Junge Freiheit put it: “Almost anyone can stay in Germany.”

All in all, already 100,000 asylum claims have been made in the first five months of the year in Germany. In the whole of last year the number was 350,000, and there has been a growing trend since 2020. Despite Chancellor Olaf Scholz claiming in October that the government would begin “large-scale” deportations, only 16,430 people were deported last year, while 31,770 planned deportations failed. Currently, there are more than 250,000 foreigners who have been ordered to leave the country.

Thorsten Frei of the centre-right opposition CDU party called the chancellor’s words “worthless.” Christine Anderson of the anti-immigration AfD party said “the asylum system of Germany and the European Union is bankrupt and broken,” endangering “the safety and lives of citizens.”