10

|TOTAL|226,800|38,700|44,600|143,495|
|---|---|---|---|---|

Source: EuroStat, cited by ESI 2017 Data on the actual return of those who are ordered to leave is incomplete. Where data is available, the indication is that while many asylum applications are rejected, only small numbers of those with orders to leave actually leave the country. For instance, in 2011, Ireland issued in total 940 orders to return due to failed asylum applications, but only 381 returned, of whom 152 benefited from Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) and 52 returned voluntarily without AVR<sup>10</sup> . Starting in 2011, Germany made increasing use of deportation, from less than 8,000 in 2011 to over 20,000 in 2015, but the reason for deportation is not specified. In 2015, 35,514 voluntary returns were approved for funding, but nearly 3⁄4 of these were nationals of the Balkans: Albania (about 32%), Kosovo (about 23%), and Serbia (about 18%)<sup>11</sup> , and relatively few were from developing countries outside of Europe.

Asylum seekers resort to multiple strategies to avoid the return, including “procedure shopping”, defined as “the simultaneous, parallel or successive introduction of several similar or different procedures (asylum, humanitarian regularization and medical regularization)”.<sup>12</sup> As reported based on a recent European Migration Network conference<sup>13</sup> , there are many challenges confronting the return of rejected asylum seekers: “public resistance to return and political pressure not to implement removals; strong individual resistance to return; greater difficulties in obtaining travel documents, compounded by the fact that asylum seekers are more frequently undocumented than other third‐country nationals; and greater prevalence of medical cases among rejected asylum seekers than among other returnees.” Additionally, there are challenges in terms of the security situation in countries of origin, the possibility of lodging late‐stage appeals and judicial reviews, combined with difficulty in establishing contact with the authorities of countries of origin before the asylum procedure is closed. The actual return of asylum‐seekers is contingent upon all those factors mentioned above.

> 10 Returning Rejected Asylum Seekers: Challenges and Good Practices in Ireland, July 2017 <u>https://www.esri.ie/pubs/RS65.pdf</u>

> 11 Migration, Integration, Asylum‐ Political Developments in Germany 2015 <u>https://ec.europa.eu/home‐affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what‐we‐</u> ‐ ‐ ‐ <u>do/networks/european_migration_network/reports/docs/annual policy/annual policy 11a_germany_apr_part2_en.pdf</u>

12 An in‐house study of the Belgian Immigration Office involved examination of 86,000 people who on average introduced an asylum application 1.55 times between 2010 to 2012. Taking all applications of these persons into considerations, on average each person applied 3.48 times. 45.5% of people applying for regularization on humanitarian or medical grounds in 2012 had previously lodged an asylum application.

> 1313 <u>http://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/EN/Publikationen/EMN/emn‐tagungsband‐rueckkehr‐ 2017.pdf;jsessionid=F32B96A388AD9CA9DEF211C9162499B8.2_cid294?__blob=publicationFile</u>