The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) has accused the centre-right-green coalition government of deceiving Austria’s citizens with its latest report on the deportation of illegal migrants.
According to Interior Minister Gerhard Karner—of the centre-right People’s Party (ÖVP)—Austria deported 6,553 people in the first half of this year: 3,080 were voluntary departures and 3,473 forced deportations. This is a 6% higher figure than in the same period last year, and the highest number since the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum was founded in 2014.
According to the ministry, 44% of all forcibly deported persons were convicted of criminal offences at least once.
Syrian and Afghan citizens were also deported, but to third countries. Without specifying how many of them were affected, Karner said: “We have to start negotiations on how we can directly deport them back to their home countries.”
National-conservative FPÖ’s MP Hannes Amesbauer was more than unsatisfied with Karner’s report, telling reporters that the government is deceiving Austrians with “number trickery of the worst kind.” He said that only 15 Syrians and nine Afghans have been deported this year, and 36 Syrians but no Afghans last year. At the same time, citizens from these two countries handed in around 30,000 asylum applications in 2023.
Afghanistan and Syria are deemed unsafe countries of origin, and returning their citizens “would be against EU law,” according to Gerhard Karner, who has advocated that a European Union-wide ban on repatriations to these countries be reconsidered.
A recent German court ruling said that there is no longer a general danger to all civilians in Syria, and a court verdict in Austria said the same about Afghanistan, emphasising that the security situation had improved since the radical Islamist Taliban regime took back power in 2021.
There have been intense political discussions in both Austria and Germany about the need for deportations to resume after a spate of brutal knife attacks in Germany, committed mostly by Afghan and Syrian migrants.
Despite the Austrian government’s insistence that it is successfully tackling illegal immigration, Amesbauer of the FPÖ believes that Gerhard Karner “has not secured our borders, but has degraded our police force to a kind of ‘welcoming committee’ for illegal immigrants.” He added that 240,000 illegal immigrants have come to Austria since the current government took power in 2020.
Amesbauer said that if his party is elected to government following late September’s parliamentary elections, it would immediately suspend asylum applications, put in place a real border protection system, enable pushbacks, consistently deport failed asylum seekers, give benefits in kind to accepted asylum seekers instead of cash handouts, and generally make Austria a less attractive destination country for illegal and economic migrants.
Recent revelations that a Syrian family with seven children is receiving €4,600 in social benefits per month have caused outrage in Austria.
The FPÖ’s strong stance on curbing migration has catapulted it to first place in opinion polls, which predict that the party will get 28% of the votes at the elections on September 29th. The People’s Party is currently in second place on 22%.
In a recent parliamentary debate, Amesbauer complained that 35% of primary school children in Austria are Muslims. “One does not have to be a prophet to recognise that mass immigration leads to Islamisation and subsequently to an increased threat of terrorism,” he said.
Authorities on Wednesday cancelled three scheduled concerts in Vienna by the U.S. pop singer Taylor Swift, after the police arrested two radical Islamists who were planning a massive terror attack at the venue.