Migration policy | Fewer people in need of protection in Germany

Asylum applications declined significantly in the first half of this year. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) registered 61,336 people who applied for protection in Germany for the first time during this period. This is almost 50 percent fewer than in the same period last year. "In the period from January to June 2025, 72,818 formal asylum applications were submitted, of which 61,336 were initial applications and 11,482 were follow-up applications," said a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Berlin.

This decline can be attributed to several interacting factors. Firstly, the gradual introduction of stationary controls at all German borders has denied those in need of protection the opportunity to apply for asylum. At the same time, tightened defensive measures by Balkan states have contributed to fewer people being able to flee via the southeastern European route. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has long expressed concern that people traveling by land are sometimes being detained without any legal process and forcibly returned to neighboring countries without their need for protection being clarified.

In addition to these structural changes on the refugee route, the political upheaval in Syria, where head of state Bashar al-Assad was overthrown in December, is also having an impact on asylum numbers. Syria, for years the main country of origin for asylum seekers in Germany, ranked just behind Afghanistan in the first half of 2025 with 15,127 applications, which now leads the list of the most important countries of origin with 15,181 initial applications.

Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) sees this development as a validation of his policy: "These are clear successes," he told the "Bild" newspaper. He wants to continue down this path "consistently" and "turn migration on its head again."

In fact, Germany had already begun controls in 2023 to prevent entry to migrants without the necessary documents. With the start of the coalition government's coalition government in early May, the controls were expanded and the rules tightened . Unlike before, people who request asylum can now also be turned away.

However, the legal basis for such rejections is controversial. In addition to the lawsuit filed by three Somalis against their rejection at the German-Polish border, three further cases have been reported, a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior told Stern magazine.

At the beginning of June, the Berlin Administrative Court ruled in an emergency decision that the rejection of three Somalis during a border check at Frankfurt (Oder) train station was unlawful . They should not be rejected without clarification as to which EU state was responsible for their asylum applications, it stated. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) described the decision as an "individual case judgment."

The Interior Ministry will continue to provide the exact reasons for the rejections, which Dobrindt ordered shortly after the new government took office, along with more intensive border controls, only in the main proceedings before the administrative court, the spokesperson told the magazine "Stern".

However, since the legal issue extends beyond Germany, many experts assume that the European Court of Justice will be the first to definitively clarify the legality. It will then likely be clarified whether Germany, under Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, may reject persons in need of protection without examination because the "maintenance of public order" is no longer guaranteed.

While this question remains unresolved, the conflict with neighboring countries is escalating: Poland, for its part, will begin border controls with Germany on Monday – and is prepared to lift this measure if Germany also ends border controls. Dobrindt has invited counterparts from several neighboring countries to a meeting on July 18 on the Zugspitze mountain to discuss European migration policy. With agencies