These are the key points of the asylum statistics for the first six months, which were presented by the Interior Ministry at a press conference on Friday. As far as the countries of origin are concerned, Syrians are by far the most numerous.
There were 8,470 arrests in the first half of the year. That is a decrease of 63 percent. The decline is particularly strong in Burgenland, where only 303 people were arrested. It was not answered which federal state is now the hotspot. However, there are declines practically everywhere.
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A total of exactly 13,479 asylum applications were submitted between January and June. This is 42 percent fewer than in the same period in 2023. Two years ago, around 44,000 applications were submitted in the first six months.
Smugglers bypass Austria
Historically, however, the numbers are not particularly low. In the pre-Corona year of 2019, for example, only around 12,900 applications were submitted in the entire year, around 600 fewer than in the first six months of this year. Nevertheless, the Interior Ministry is satisfied. The density of controls is having an effect, and the smuggling routes are largely bypassing Austria, emphasized Federal Police Director Michael Takacs.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (VP) also stressed the sharp decline compared to the previous year. Across Europe, the numbers have only fallen by two percent. The deputy head of the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum, Karoline Preißer, pointed out that countries such as Greece and Italy have even seen strong increases. Karner does not believe that his own goals have been achieved yet: “The goal must be to reduce illegal migration to zero.”
What has kept the numbers high in 2024 is family reunification. This can be clearly seen in the proportion of minors and female asylum seekers. Almost 54 percent of the applications (53.7) came from people under 18, the largest age group being those aged 0-7. In 2023, only a third of the applicants were minors, and in 2022 the figure was just under 21 percent.
The picture is no different when it comes to the number of female asylum seekers. This year, their share was 46 percent. Two years ago, it was just nine percent, and in 2023 it will be 24 percent.
Trend has weakened
However, the trend has weakened over the course of the year. While almost 2,200 applications were received in January under the title of family reunification, in June there were only 414. Preißer expects that these numbers will continue to fall. 1,123 applications were recalled and reviewed once more.
As far as countries of origin are concerned, Syrians are now clearly in the lead with a good 8,400 applications. The second largest group are Afghans with just under 1,400.
So far in 2024, 14,772 residence permits have been issued to refugees. 9,931 of these were asylum grants. The rest are divided between subsidiary protection and humanitarian residence permits. People from Iran, Syria and Afghanistan as well as stateless persons have a particularly good chance of being granted asylum.
The Freedom Party and Burgenland Social Democrats were not very enthusiastic regarding the asylum record. FP security spokesman Hannes Amesbauer wrote in a press release regarding “horse-trading”. Interior Minister Karner did not mention that in the last two and a half years so many illegal immigrants had entered our country that they might fill a large city in Austria. Burgenland SP parliamentary group leader Roland Fürst said that under Karner no other interior minister had more asylum applications been submitted than under any other minister, namely almost 185,000.
Last update: July 19, 2024, 1:31 p.m.
