Berlin hardened its stance on immigration following a surge in arrivals and stabbings committed by asylum-seekers.
Asylum applications in Germany fell by 34 percent last year, the interior ministry said.
Public anxiety over migration has become a political hot topic in Germany as it approaches its February elections, following violent incidents involving immigrants, which have led to a significant shift in policy
Last September, Berlin announced plans to impose tighter controls for six months at all of the country’s land borders with other European Union countries, which are ordinarily part of the Schengen free-movement zone.
As a result, on Feb. 4, German authorities announced that it had registered 213,499 asylum applications in 2024, a decrease of 34 percent compared to the previous year when 322,636 applications were recorded.
In January 2025, the number of applications dropped by 37 percent compared to January 2024.
Federal police registered almost a third fewer illegal arrivals in 2024. In 2024, 13,786 people were turned back at the border or deported in connection with illegal border crossings.
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“This shows once again that our measures are working,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wrote on social media platform X.
According to statistics from the European Union, in 2023, Germany registered the largest numbers of asylum seekers from Syria, Turkey, and Afghanistan, accounting for 56.2 percent of all Syrian applicants in the EU, 68 percent of Turkish applicants, and 50.8 percent of Afghan applicants.
The asylum numbers for Germany do not include Ukrainians, as the EU established the Temporary Protection Directive in 2022, which allows those nationals to stay without having to apply for asylum.
Last year Germany hardened its stance on immigration following a surge in arrivals in the past decade.
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, in 2015 accepted more than a million Syrian refugees into Germany.
Furthermore, recent deadly knife attacks in Germany in which the suspects were asylum-seekers have stoked concerns over immigration.
A fatal stabbing by a Syrian asylum-seeker in Solingen last August left three people dead.
The perpetrator claimed to be inspired by ISIS, and the terror group claimed responsibility for the attack.
In January, a toddler and a man were killed in a knife attack in Germany, local police said. Police arrested a 28-year-old man from Afghanistan.
Merz Demands Further Controls
Last week Friedrich Merz, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader who is tipped to become Germany’s next chancellor, pushed a non-binding motion through parliament, with the support of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), demanding a further tightening of border controls, breaking a taboo on cooperation with the party.
Parliament later rejected a draft bill, also sponsored by Merz, that called for restrictions on family reunification and more expulsions at the borders.
Merz had argued that the bill was a necessary response to a series of high-profile stabbings in public spaces by foreign nationals.
But the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens said the proposals would not have stopped the attacks and they violate European law.
According to research by the polling company Forsa released on Jan. 28, support for CDU fell by 2 percentage points to 28 percent within a week, close to federal elections on Feb. 23.
AfD is currently second in the polls.
On Sept. 1, 2024, the party emerged as the dominant political force in recent state elections in eastern Germany, securing nearly 33 percent of the vote in Thuringia and almost 31 percent in Saxony.
AfD leaders have called for strict border controls and a reduction in asylum seekers. The party has also pushed for preserving what it sees as traditional German culture and says that “Islam does not belong to Germany.”
In its 2025 Manifesto, AfD said that “from now on we will determine again who comes to us and who does not.” It added that there “will be no more cash benefits for asylum seekers.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
