The number of undocumented entries detected by the Federal Police fell drastically in 2024. At the same time, the number of suspicionless checks almost doubled.
In 2024, the Federal Police carried out 6.1 million checks at German borders, more than twice as many as in the previous year. This is according to the Federal Government’s recently published answer to a parliamentary question from Left Party MP Clara Bünger. The increase is primarily due to extended ‘veil searches’. These are police measures in which people may be checked up to 30 kilometres away in border areas without a specific reason. For 2024, the Federal Police is counting a total of 4.7 million such suspicionless checks – which is also almost double the previous figure. In addition, there will be around 1.35 million searches of property by the Federal Police, including bags and vehicles.
With the so-called migration crisis, Germany began controls at the border with Austria in 2015, followed by Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic in 2023. In September 2024, under pressure from the conservative and right-wing opposition, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (Social Democrats) finally ordered the expansion to all German land borders.
This closure is also reflected in the statistics: there has been a particular increase in Federal Police checks at the borders with the Czech Republic (2.48 million compared to 721,000 in 2023), Poland (810,000 compared to 38,000) and the Netherlands (409,000 compared to 245,000). At the border with France, on the other hand, the number of checks fell slightly to 150,000. Airports are also considered to be Germany’s or the EU’s external border, where a total of around 362,000 checks were carried out on entry in 2024.
At the same time, the number of unauthorised entries detected fell by a good two thirds to just 17,900 – a low ‘hit rate’ in view of the millions of checks, criticises the questioner Bünger. This means that the vast majority of those checked have a visa or residence permit or come from countries whose citizens are allowed to enter without a visa.
Those affected are often targeted by officers simply because of their skin or hair colour, their assumed origin or because of a religious symbol, says Bünger. The MP sees this as racial profiling, which violates the ban on discrimination in Article 3 of the German Basic Law.
The German government wants to counter this problem with training measures on anti-racism and anti-discrimination. These topics are ‘an integral and essential part’ of all career groups in the Federal Police, they say in the reply. ‘The most effective way to combat racial profiling would be to remove the authorisation for suspicionless checks without replacement,’ says Bünger. This is also the recommendation of the UN Committee against Racism.
The outgoing social-democratic-green government also wanted to curb racist controls via a clause in the new Federal Police Act, which would allow those affected to demand so-called control receipts from officers. However, the law was not passed due to early elections. The Christian Democrats, who are likely to be the next chancellor with Friedrich Merz, reject the new changes which were contained in the draft.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Police checks in Kehl (Leonhard Lenz, CC0 1.0).
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