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Germany abandons 9,000 deportations after losing track of migrants

Story by James Rothwell
• 20h • 2 min read



Germany is struggling to cope with a large influx of migrants, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey - Sean Gallup/Getty

Germany was forced to abandon nearly 9,000 deportations this year because state authorities lost track of migrants.
The government postponed 8,826 forced returns in the first half of the year after migrants went into hiding or failed to declare their current address, figures show.

The deportations were targeting rejected asylum seekers, illegal migrants and foreigners who had been convicted of a crime in Germany.
Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Party has responded by calling for migrants living under deportation orders to lose their benefits so they cannot stay on the run for long.
“Anyone who goes into hiding must immediately lose all access to social benefits,” Günter Krings, the CDU’s interior affairs spokesman, told Die Welt. “The rule of law must not be made into a mockery.”
The figures, first obtained by the German tabloid Bild, are the latest embarrassment for Friedrich Merz, the chancellor and leader of the CDU.
Border security is a major issue for Mr Merz’s government, which is struggling to fend off surging support for the anti-migrant, hard-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
The AfD is expected to comfortably win two state elections in eastern Germany next month and could even secure enough support to form its first regional governments.
The populist party has claimed that the Merz administration’s policy on deporting migrants was proving to be a “disaster”, describing its recent border security drive as a “complete dud”.



Friedrich Merz’s government has taken a tougher approach to migration since he became German chancellor in May 2025 - Clemens Bilan/EPA;/ Shutterstock

However, the Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party of the CDU, has said the blame for missed deportations lies with blundering state authorities and not the federal government.
Alexander Hoffmann, a senior CSU MP, said state authorities needed to ramp up pre-deportation detention of migrants so they could not go on the run.

Under Germany’s federal system, the country’s 16 states are responsible for enforcing deportation orders, including tracking down migrants and placing them in pre-removal detention.
In Germany, citizens are legally required to register their current address with the authorities. But if a migrant fails to do so, police may lose track of them altogether.
The federal government is responsible for the final deportation, which usually involves escorting the migrant to an airport and placing them on a flight home.
“The federal states have a duty to increase their number of deportation detention places so that we can significantly increase the overall number of deportations,” said Mr Hoffmann.
Mr Merz’s government, which also consists of the centre-Left Social Democrats, has pledged a raft of new migration policies since it came to power in May last year.

It has reintroduced land border checks along all of Germany’s frontiers to prevent migrants from entering on foot and announced a “deportation offensive”.
The policy is aimed mainly at rejected Afghan asylum seekers, after Berlin struck a deal with the Taliban to return convicted criminals to their home country.

Germany abandons 9,000 deportations after losing track of migrants