Unauthorised migration into EU declined despite heated politics

Barcelona: Unauthorised migration to European Union countries dropped significantly overall in the first eight months of this year, even as political rhetoric and violence against migrants increased and far-right parties espousing anti-immigration policies made gains at the polls.

There was, however, a spike in migrant arrivals to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago close to the African coast that is increasingly used as an alternate stepping stone to continental Europe.

Irregular migration dominated the European parliamentary elections in June and influenced recent state elections in eastern Germany, where a far-right party won for the first time since World War II. The German government this week announced it was expanding border controls around its territory following recent extremist attacks.

What do the numbers show?

Despite the heated debates, irregular crossings over the southern borders of the EU — the region that sees the most unauthorised migration — were down by 35% from January to August, according to the latest preliminary figures compiled by the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration.

Nearly 115,000 migrants — less than 0.03% of the EU’s population — have arrived without permission into the EU via Mediterranean and Atlantic routes so far this year, compared to 176,252 during the same period last year, the U.N. says.

In contrast, more than a million people, most of them fleeing conflict in Syria, entered the EU in 2015.

Data shared by the EU’s border and coast guard agency Frontex shows a similar trend: Unauthorized crossings over the region’s southern borders fell 39% overall this year compared to last year.

“The emergency is not numerical this year, nor was it last year,” Flavio di Giacomo, a spokesperson

with the IOM office for the Mediterranean, told The Associated Press.

Camille Le Coz, an associate director of the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute in Europe, said irregular migration is “getting way too much attention compared to the scope of the issue and compared to other issues Europe should be tackling, such as climate change.”

The most commonly used route for migrants is from North Africa, across the dangerous Central Mediterranean to Italy.

Yet roughly 64% fewer migrants disembarked in Italy this year than during the same period in 2023, according to IOM and Frontex numbers.

Experts say that’s a result of the EU-supported crackdown in Tunisia and Libya, which comes at a price for migrants, many of whom are systematically rounded up and dumped in the desert.