I often point out that immigration and asylum in Germany is always in 'waves' and 'ebbs'. So ARD (public TV, Channel One) came out this morning with a update on the numbers for 2018 (January through November).
For the whole 2017 period? It was 198k.
For the eleven months of 2018? 174k. A fair sized drop.
But there's this other odd statistic out there....people leaving Germany. For 2016/2017 (two year period)....roughly 2.4-million folks left.
They also tell the story that when you look at the incoming crowd flow (immigrants, not asylum-seekers), then around two-third of the 'flow' are from a European country (like Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, etc). Oddly enough, 15-percent were from Asian countries.
What changed since the peak (2015)? I think this goes to three central stories:
1. Various countries from the German border going south to Greece....erected fences and made entry more difficult.
2. Increased pressure from Italian authorities on 'rescue' vessels picking up the rubber-raft crowd and 'saving' them....occurred over the past 18 months.
3. The reality of passing a asylum review by the BamF German authorities became an open fact. If you weren't from a war-zone area, and didn't have any real pluses on your application (like German language and skillcraft knowledge)....you likely failed and were given papers to exit or be deported out of Germany. You could appeal this situation but the odds were against a reversal.
Would this all reverse the AfD political appeal? If it weren't for these occasional public episodes where assaults/murders were identified with an asylum member, it should decrease public appeal for voters to identify with the AfD. What you really need is an entire year where no real episodes occur, and the public would finally agree that the chaos from 2013 to 2017....has ended. How long before you might see the end of this 'tunnel'? Oh, I would suggest another entire decade....to lessen tensions.
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