Germany said it’s stepping up efforts to thwart people smuggling by empowering police to establish mobile and fixed checkpoints along its borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
The move follows a traffic accident on Friday in which seven people died after apparently being driven illegally across the frontier into Bavaria. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser referred to the incident when announcing the new controls, which add to similar measures in place along Germany’s border with Austria.
“The business of the smugglers is becoming ever more brutal and unscrupulous,” she said in an emailed statement on Monday. “It is now necessary to take all possible measures to stop this cruel business with human lives.”
The issue of illegal immigration has featured prominently in the news in Germany in recent weeks, prompting pledges from Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ministers that the government will deal with the situation.
Many voters appear unconvinced. The three ruling parties — Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats — all lost support and finished behind the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany in two key regional elections this month.
The far-right party is running second in national polls behind the conservative CDU/CSU alliance and has the strongest backing in four of the former communist eastern states with backing above 30%.
Faeser said that Germany urgently needs an effective limit on irregular migration to help relieve the burden on local authorities.
“We are in close contact with our neighbors and the federal states to ensure that all measures on both sides of our borders mesh together in the best possible way,” she said. “At the same time, it is particularly important to me that the controls have as little impact as possible on the everyday lives of commuters, on trade and on travel.”
