Nearly 105,000 visas were granted to foreigners because they had close family members living in Germany in 2016. In 2015, that figure was roughly half at 70,000.

The numbers do not just encompass asylum seekers and refugees, but all foreigners, including people who themselves do not have EU-citizenship but are married or related to a German. However, a significant number of family reunification visas were issued to relatives of people who sought asylum in Germany.

"For the year 2016, roughly 73,000 visas were granted to ensure family reunification for people from Syria or Iraq who have been granted asylum or subsidiary protection," the Foreign Ministry told the newspaper "Die Welt". This is three times as many as in the previous year, when 24,000 such visas were issued.

While the numbers are on the rise, they are far below what many Germans expected. In 2016, Christian von Stetten, a member of the German parliament for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party, said he expected 1.1 million people to join family members who had been granted asylum.

The German government passed a new asylum bill in February 2016 that has made family reunification more difficult for asylum seekers. Those who have only been granted "subsidiary protection" rather than full asylum have to wait two years until they can apply for their family members to join them.

New arrivals fall, asylum requests soar in 2016 First-time applications in 2016 A total of 722,370 first-time applicants filed requests for political asylum in Germany in 2016, according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). The number reflects a roughly 65 percent increase compared to the previous year, when the total number of new applications stood at 441,899.

New arrivals fall, asylum requests soar in 2016 Follow-up requests 33.3 percent lower The number of follow-up applications, however, recorded a decline of 33.3 percent. In 2015, 34,750 second-chance asylum requests were filed with BAMF, whereas in 2016 the number fell to 23,175.

New arrivals fall, asylum requests soar in 2016 Total asylum requests 56 percent higher Combined, the number of first-time and follow-up applications for 2016 stood at 745,545. In 2015, this number stood at 476,649. So, BAMF recorded a 56.4 percent net increase in the total number of asylum requests in 2016 compared with 2015.

New arrivals fall, asylum requests soar in 2016 Applications from Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis The highest number of requests in 2016 were filed by Syrian nationals. According to BAMF’s report, people from the war-torn Middle Eastern state submitted 266,250 of the new applications (36.9 percent). Afghan nationals came in second, with 127,012 (17.6 percent), followed by Iraqis, who filed 96,116 asylum requests (13.3 percent) last year.

New arrivals fall, asylum requests soar in 2016 Other prominent countries of origin People from Iran filed 26,426 applications (3.7 percent). Eritreans submitted 18,854 applications (2.6 percent). Albanians totaled 14,853 (2.1 percent), 14,484 people from Pakistan requested asylum (2 percent), and Nigerians submitted 12,709 applications (1.8 percent).

New arrivals fall, asylum requests soar in 2016 Young males make up majority of applicants Nearly three-quarters of the applications filed in 2016 came from people younger than 30 years old. People aged between 18 and 25 filed 196,853 asylum requests, or about 23.5 percent of the overall total, making them the largest age group. The number of applications for children under the age of 4 stood at 78,192 (10.8 percent).

New arrivals fall, asylum requests soar in 2016 Almost 700,000 decisions reached in 2016 German authorities accepted 433,920 people of the 695,733 applications they decided on in 2016. The overall protection rate for all countries of origin amounted to 62.4 percent.

New arrivals fall, asylum requests soar in 2016 Crimes against refugee centers still high Ranging from vandalism to arson, more than 900 attacks on refugee centers were recorded in Germany in 2016. The Federal Criminal Police Office reported that, out of the 921 recorded offenses, 857 were suspected to have had far-right motives. In 2015, 1,031 such offenses were recorded, 923 of which were suspected of having a far-right background. Author: Aasim Saleem



mb/rt (AFP, KNA)