Germany pushes to return Tunisian illegal immigrants

NTD Staff
By NTD Staff
February 14, 2017World News
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed said on Tuesday (February 14) they had agreed to speed up the deportation of illegal Tunisian migrants and repatriate them, if at all possible voluntarily.

Speaking after a working lunch with Chahed, Merkel told reporters “there are just over 30,000 people in Germany who are Tunisian citizens and of those, roughly 1,500…are forced to leave.”

“We already discussed last year how these deportations can be improved,” said Merkel, adding that the two countries were discussing “how we can make voluntary returns attractive for people by offering them education and a certain amount to get started.”

Merkel expressed hope that repatriations would “work better if we can do this voluntarily by telling these people: listen, it’s better for you to return voluntarily because then you will receive an initial aid.”

The German chancellor also said that an “advice center” would be set up in Tunisia.

In an interview with the popular newspaper Bild on Tuesday, Chahed rejected criticism that his country had been slow to take back failed asylum seekers from Europe, including Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri.

Youssef Chahed also rejected the idea of Tunisia setting up its own asylum centers to ease the burden on Europe.

Shortcomings in the system were exposed in December by the failure to deport Tunisian Islamic State supporter Amri, who was on a watch list and had been denied asylum six months before .

 

(Reuters)

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