Schuster wants another step after border controls

For Saxony's Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU), the extension of border controls announced by the federal government can only be a first step. "Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) should not wait as long as in other cases to implement our proposals for immediate refoulement at the borders," Schuster told the German Press Agency in Dresden.

The German government had previously announced that it would extend the special regulation, which expires in March, by six months until September 15. "With border controls, we are effectively pushing back irregular migration," explained Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). According to Faeser, this will stop smugglers who brutally commodify people and smuggle them across borders.

Schuster believes there is no alternative to extending border controls

"There is no alternative - as long as the EU's external borders are full of holes, internal migration of refugees continues unabated and the Dublin procedure remains a total failure," Schuster clarified. Saxony has repeatedly urged the continuation of controls at Germany's external borders and spoken out in favor of rejecting asylum seekers who enter from safe countries.

Controls at all borders since September

Border controls are not actually planned in the European Schengen area. Last September, however, Germany extended the controls already in place in the east and south of the country to the borders with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. At the time, the stationary controls were justified with illegal immigration as well as protection against Islamist terrorists and cross-border crime.

Ministry of the Interior: 47,000 rejections

According to the Ministry of the Interior, around 80,000 unauthorized entries have been detected in recent months, around 1,900 smugglers have been arrested and around 47,000 people have been turned back - for example due to forged documents or missing visas. This special regulation is now being extended. "With the border controls, we are effectively pushing back irregular migration, as the figures show," explained Scholz.