(21 Dec 2015) Faced with an unprecedented influx of refugees and growing anxiety among parts of the electorate, authorities in Germany have stepped up the deportation of failed asylum seekers, officials said on Monday.
The task of handling asylum requests falls to Germany's 16 states and some have been more rigorous in applying the law than others.
Bavaria, the state that most asylum seekers first set foot in, more than trebled its deportations to 3,643 in the first 11 months from 1,007 last year.
Earlier this year, Bavaria opened a special centre for people unlikely to get asylum.
Situated on a former US Army barracks in Bamberg, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) north of Nuremberg, the Arrival and Return Facility II currently houses about 850 people.
Almost all are from western Balkan nations, chiefly Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia.
These are considered by Germany to be safe countries where individuals are unlikely to face the kind of persecution that would warrant asylum.
Most of those being deported said economic hardship made them travel to Germany.
Elvis Asani, a Roma from Serbia, is being sent back with his wife and children, but he told the AP he had no home and no job to go back to.
Since the centre was opened in mid-September, the 15 staff processing asylum requests haven't issued a single permanent residency permit, officials said.
Meanwhile, 463 people were deported voluntarily and 170 were forcibly deported.
Decisions are made within five to ten days.
Stefan Krug, an official with the regional government of Upper Franconia, said the mood at the centre was quite peaceful despite the situation, just days before Christmas.
New figures show that the number of deportations almost doubled this year from 2014.
By the end of November, German authorities had deported 18,363 people whose asylum request had been rejected, compared to 10,884 in all of last year.
Authorities are planning to increase the Bamberg centre's capacity to 1,500 by the end of December, and to 4,500 by the end of March.
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