PublishedSeptember 24, 2022, 8:43 PM
SuisseBorder guards note rise in illegal immigrants
Since the beginning of the year, 23,755 illegal immigrants have been arrested in Switzerland. Many of them come from the Balkan route.
Frontex has registered nearly 70,000 illegal migrants on the Balkan route.
AFP
Between January and August 2022, Switzerland recorded an increase in cases of illegal immigration. This phenomenon can also be seen on a European scale. On the Balkan route, the European Border Surveillance Agency (Frontex) recorded nearly 70,000 illegal immigrants during this period, reports the “Switzerland at the weekend» (subscribed article). This is three times more than for the same period in 2021. In Switzerland, border guards arrested 23,755 people in an illegal situation – 5,000 more than for the whole of 2021.
According to the German-speaking newspaper, most of these migrants arrive in the canton of Saint-Gall from Austria and are mainly from Afghanistan or North Africa. They use smugglers. In eight months, border guards have also identified 281 suspected smugglers.
And although many migrants only see Switzerland as a transit country, the Confederation is taking action. While she estimated in June that the number of asylum applications would be 16,500 by the end of the year, she has now raised this figure to 19,000.
“Directed” migratory movements
In an interview given in mid-September to theTages-Anzeiger» (subscribed item), Karin Keller-Sutter had also noticed that many migrants traveled to Serbia without visas and then tried to enter the Schengen area via the Balkan route, with the help of smugglers. During this interview, she explained that “some EU countries believe that migratory movements are directed […]: refugees and migrants are exploited to destabilize Europe”. And according to some, Russia is behind it all.
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