EU says number of migrants exceeds terms of its deal with Turkey

BERLIN, Germany — The European Union reports that its 28 member states have received more “irregular migrants” from Turkey, which is a violation of an agreement signed between the EU and Anakara on stemming the flow of migrants.
 
The European Union admitted 2,672 legal Syrian refugees from Turkey while deporting 801 in 2016, Deutsche Welle reported on Sunday.

Half of those migrants were deported in the two months following the March 2016 agreement, which stipulated that for each migrant, whose asylum application is rejected in the EU, a properly vetted Syrian refugee from Turkey would be flown to an EU country.
 
For its part, Turkey is scheduled to receive billions of euros in aid and could restart talks regarding its admission into the EU; however, those negotiations were halted in November because of human rights concerns in Turkey.
 
Deportation of irregular migrants, many of who reach the continent via Turkey and Greece is heavily debated among EU politicians because of concerns over Turkey’s poor human rights record, and other legal factors.
 
About 1.4 million refugees came to Germany since 2015, according to the German Office for Migration and Immigration — more than any other of the 28 EU members.
 
German authorities had previously tried to deport a Tunisian asylum seeker, Anis Amri, because of a lengthy criminal history in Europe, but were unable to do so in accordance with laws which require the deporting government firstly to prove the person’s citizenship.
 
Amri was the primary suspect in a December truck attack in Berlin that killed 12 people and injured 56 others before Italian police killed Amri during his attempted apprehension.
 
The EU allocated 140 million euros in humanitarian assistance directly to the people of Syria in 2016 to try to stem the flow of Syrian refugees into Turkey.

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