WASHINGTON — If 2015 was the year in which Germany opened its doors to refugees, 2016 was when the country pondered how to close them. Although the influx of refugees peaked more than a year ago, attacks like the one in Berlin on Dec. 19 have led to demands to refuse entry to individuals without passports and to step up deportations of criminals and terror suspects.
Authorities in Germany hope that another trend could have a bigger impact in the short run: migrants being fed up with the country or fearing deportation who decide to go back. More than twice as many migrants left Germany voluntarily this year than were deported.
Out of the 55,000 migrants who left voluntarily, 15,000 were Albanians. About 5,000 returned to Serbia, Iraq, and Kosovo, respectively. The numbers were first reported by Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. The migration ministry confirmed their authenticity on Wednesday.
Germany offers individuals or families willing to return to their countries of origin financial benefits that can amount to several thousand euros, including travel costs and a so-called ‘‘start-up grants.’’ Promoted as an alternative to conventional development aid, such payments are supposed to help vitalize local economies and to prevent returnees and others from ending up fleeing to Europe again.
The German government will spend more than $155 million on additional development aid projects over the next three years in countries that many migrants leave to go to Germany. Included are Morocco and Tunisia, as well as Kosovo, Serbia and Albania, which are generally considered ‘‘safe’’ by German authorities.
Voluntary departures are unlikely to solve Germany’s lagging efforts to deport more migrants, however. Out of the almost 900,000 people who entered last year alone, many remain in the country despite having been refused asylum.
German authorities say that deportations are expensive and difficult to organize. Migrants are often arrested at night and later put on planes to their home countries.
Pressure is on the rise to reform that process as more details are emerging about efforts to deport Anis Amri, who killed 12 people in Berlin’s Christmas market attack last week. He was fatally shot by a police officer in Italy as he fled.
Despite a criminal past, the 24-year-old could not be deported to his home country of Tunisia for months, because he lacked documents the North African nation had failed to provide, according to German media reports. He did flee Germany eventually — after his attack.
