Germany's deportations drop 21% in first quarter despite promised 'return offensive'

Germany deported 4,807 migrants in the first four months of 2026, a 21% decline from 6,151 in the same period of 2025, according to a government response to a parliamentary question from the Left Party reported by the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. The drop is the first in five years and undercuts the coalition government's promised "return offensive" enshrined in the coalition agreement of the CDU/CSU and SPD.

The figures come as Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) face the first anniversary of Merz's election as chancellor on May 6, 2026. Merz had repeatedly raised expectations of sharply increasing deportations, including during the "cityscape" debate he initiated last autumn and by citing Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa's claim during his Berlin visit that 80% of Syrians in Germany could return within three years. The far-right AfD is expected to remind Merz of those statements given the declining numbers.

The decline is largely driven by a collapse in Dublin transfers — the return of asylum seekers to the EU member state responsible for their application. In the first three months of 2025, Germany carried out 1,715 such transfers; in January-March 2026, the figure fell to 889, a drop of 826 that accounts for most of the overall decline of 1,344 deportations. Germany submitted nearly half as many Dublin take-back requests to other EU states, likely due to the general decline in asylum applications. The acceptance rate for Dublin requests by other EU states remains at around 13%, meaning other countries only take back asylum seekers for whom they are responsible in exceptional cases.

The Iran war may have prevented some deportations by disrupting air traffic in certain regions; Iraq was no longer among the main destination countries for deportations in the first quarter of 2026. Deportations of criminals to Afghanistan and Syria have occurred — including a charter flight of 25 Afghan criminals days ago — but these cases are numerically insignificant.

Asylum applications have declined sharply, a trend that began under the previous government and benefited from the regime change in Syria weeks before the federal election. While Merz and Dobrindt can point to border rejections and falling asylum numbers, the return figures represent the other side of asylum policy and mark the first reversal in five years.