Officials figures show that fewer than a third of failed asylum seekers to Europe are actually removed, which exacerbates the migrant crisis by encouraging bogus refugees.

A report by the European Commission suggests that there were 2.6 million asylum applications in the EU in 2015-16, of which some 43 per cent were rejected as bogus, according to a report by The Times.

This left EU governments with around one million people to deport — but Brussels estimates the so-called “rate of effective return” to non-EU countries at just 36.4 per cent, dropping to 27 per cent when returns to the Western Balkans are discounted.

Examples of asylum seekers who remained at large after their applications were rejected included Anis Amri, who drove a hijacked lorry into a Christmas market in Berlin in 2016, and Rakhmat Akilov, who ran deliberately targeted children in another lorry attack in Stockholm.

EU Court Stops Ireland Deporting ISIS-Linked Man, Even If He Threatens National Security https://t.co/sEDuagCpck pic.twitter.com/UdpY0thAl5 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 3, 2016

“Only a third of those who should be returned are effectively returned. This is . . . not sustainable,” conceded European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in a letter to EU member-governments in 2016.

Nevertheless, key players in countries such as Germany — which hosts at least 250,000 bogus asylum seekers — say actually removing rejected applicants is “almost impossible”.

“The question of deportation is a great illusion in Germany,” said Bavarian Minister-President Horst Seehoefer in August 2017.

“It is almost impossible to send back the migrants once they are in the country,” he added.

Shambles in Germany https://t.co/1Pwbr34zv6 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 7, 2017

“The inability of EU governments to enforce deportations is the biggest pull factor. If people know that as illegal immigrants they have a 70 per cent-plus chance of being able to stay, even if ordered to leave, then it is hardly surprising people get into the boats,” said one EU official working on migration.

The consequences of the crisis are not confined to the bloc’s border states or the countries which have adopted enthusiastic open borders policies, however.

British authorities foiled some 56,000 attempts on Britain’s borders by illegal immigrants in 2016 — roughly 153 a day. Few of those who elude the country’s defences are deported, due to broad interpretations of Human Rights legislation by judges and inflexible EU regulations.

For example, migrants who cross to Britain from France cannot simply be sent back across the Channel — the EU’s Dublin III regulations require illegal entrants to be sent back to the first EU country they entered, and this cannot always be determined. Only 14 out of several thousand illegal migrants who arrived from France were sent back in 2014.

David Wood, a former director-general of immigration enforcement at the UK Home Office, frankly admitted that: “[In] reality . . . the vast majority stay here, regardless of the merits of their application.”

Wood’s comments are in line with a Breitbart London report from April 2017 which indicated that deportations from Britain have fallen to a record low.

Judges Rule it Would ‘Not Be Fair’ to Deport Paedophile Refugee https://t.co/4eJwEZsXkT — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 15, 2017

Admiral Lord West of Spithead, former Royal Navy First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 2002 to 2006, has commented on his surprise at “how long it has taken … to realise that the present policy of rescuing migrants from Libyan boats and ferrying them to Europe is unsustainable.”

He added: “The only way to stop the flow of people from Libya is to blockade the coast and pay the factions in Libya to allow the setting up of a transit camp under the auspices of non-governmental organisations where migrants could be filtered.

“Then we can smash the people-smugglers and stop them being able to advertise Royal Navy and EU ships as part of their ticket to Europe.”

Fo llow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery