(EFE).- The number of Cubans seeking asylum in Germany multiplied by eight during the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2022, from 73 to 607, according to the newspaper Bild.
“The number of asylum applications from Cuban nationals this year, as of July 2, 2023, has risen compared to the same period last year from 73 to 607,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior confirmed to the newspaper.
According to the outlet, Cubans use a mechanism that consists of buying a plane ticket to a destination for which they do not need a visa, for example Belgrade or Dubai, with a stopover in the German city of Frankfurt.
There, where transit passengers do not need a visa, they appear before the Police and request asylum.
According to the newspaper, Cubans use a mechanism that consists of buying a plane ticket to a destination for which they do not need a visa.
According to the spokesman, in 2022, 302 Cubans who mainly used this transit privilege to request asylum were identified.
He added that “not even half” of these Cubans follow the regular route, that is, they do not appear at the corresponding center of the migration office “after expressing their desire for asylum before the federal Police” at the airport and registering their data.
The newspaper notes that around 300 Cubans have disappeared in this way.
“It is unacceptable that the Schengen border code can be undermined by a simple trick, that is, with a transit flight. The right of asylum and Schengen rights must be urgently reviewed,” demanded the head of the German Police union, Heiko Teggatz, in statements to Bild.
The newspaper points out that around 95% of the asylum applications presented by Cuban citizens are rejected. In 2021, 38 Cuban asylum requests were registered; last year, 187.
The newspaper indicates that around 95% of the asylum applications presented by Cuban citizens are rejected
Bild It also recounts the case of the González family -father, mother, and two children- and two other Cubans who had left Havana on May 27 with the Condor airline bound for Dubai via Frankfurt, where they were intercepted in the transit zone by the Police.
In statements to the Police, the woman confessed that they wanted to emigrate to Spain illegally, for which they had to first request asylum in Germany, and were going to be picked up after the reception center by some smugglers who would take them to Madrid by car and who had demanded 25,000 euros (27,750 dollars) for the service.
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