In the first three months of the year, 6151 people were deported from Germany - significantly more than in the same quarter of the previous year. This is according to the federal government's answer to a question from the Left Party in the Bundestag, which was made available to AFP on Friday. In the previous year, 4791 deportations were counted in the first quarter. There was therefore a year-on-year increase of 28.4 percent.
Among those deported in the first quarter of 2025 were 1339 women and 1118 minors. If the figures for the first quarter remain stable for the entire current year, this would result in more than 24,000 deportations - significantly more than in previous years. In 2024, a total of around 20,000 people were deported from Germany, compared to around 16,500 deportations in 2023. The Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) was the first to report on the development.
However, the number could rise even more this year than the figures for the first quarter suggest: The deportations in the first months of the year were still the responsibility of the previous federal government. The CDU and CSU, in particular, have announced that they will enforce more returns in the future than before.
The vast majority of deportations, 5216, were carried out by air. 913 people were deported by land and 22 by sea. Most were deported to Turkey (502), Georgia (454), France (333), Spain (325) and Serbia (291). 157 people were deported to Iraq and five to Iran. Around 1700 of the deportations were so-called “Dublin transfers” to other European countries, which are responsible for the asylum procedure in accordance with the Dublin Regulation. The Dublin Agreement on the treatment of asylum seekers in the European Union stipulates that refugees must submit their asylum application in the EU country in which they first set foot on European soil.
According to the report, just over a third of deportations took place on costly charter flights. Collective deportations to Pakistan were particularly expensive and time-consuming. The costs for these amounted to 462,000 euros. The cost of deportation flights to Ethiopia amounted to 418,000 euros, while others to Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon cost 380,000 euros. However, the European border protection agency Frontex bore the costs for many of these flights.
In the first quarter of 2025, 345 deportations were aborted during or after handover to the federal police, including 81 Dublin transfers. In 85 cases, the airlines or pilots refused to carry out the deportations. In 82 cases, the persons concerned resisted, 32 times the Federal Police refused to take them over and in 31 cases there were medical reasons against deportation. Deportations to Turkey failed most frequently (91). In 2024, 1150 deportations were aborted in the entire year, compared to 1054 in 2023.
Left-wing MP Clara Bünger criticized the authorities' approach. "I am aware of a number of deportations where the police acted brutally and without any empathy," Bünger told AFP. "We are talking about families being torn apart in freezing cold or sick people being literally kidnapped from hospital and carted from there to the deportation flight."
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