Thousands of asylum seekers re-entering Germany to reapply

Thousands of asylum seekers living in Germany havealready been deported or voluntarily left the country before comingback and reapplying, according to a report from the Welt am Sonntagnewspaper.As of October 30, 2019, there were 4,916 asylum seekers in Germanywho had already entered the country twice since 2012, and then wereeither deported or left voluntarily, and then came back again andapplied a third time, the newspaper wrote, citing data from theGerman government. There are 1,023 asylum seekers living in the country who are on theirfourth attempt. A total of 294 have applied five or more times.The numbers make up only a small proportion of those who have appliedfor asylum in Germany. According to Germany's Federal StatisticalOffice, 1.78 million people came to Germany seeking refuge between2010 and 2018.German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has called for Europeanasylum reforms, including setting up a procedure to carry out aninitial examination of migrants' requests for protection before theyenter Europe.He announced the tightening-up of border controls by Berlin severalweeks ago, in response to the controversial re-entry of the leadingmember of the Lebanese Miri clan to Germany.Ibrahim Miri had been deported to Lebanon in July after beingsentenced for gangland drug offences, but reappeared in the northernport city of Bremen at the end of October.He was deported again in late October.