Six months after the launch of so-called Dublin centers in Hamburg and Brandenburg, the number of returns to the respective EU countries of origin remains low. Between March and the end of August this year, only five migrants were transferred back to Poland from the Dublin center in Eisenhüttenstadt, according to the Brandenburg Interior Ministry. A total of 72 individuals have been accommodated at the facility, resulting in a transfer rate of approximately one in fourteen.
Hamburg, meanwhile, housed 75 unaccompanied male migrants at its Dublin center between March and the end of August. The city’s interior authority reports that 38 of these individuals were subsequently transferred back to another EU member state.
A spokesperson for the Brandenburg Interior Ministry attributed the low numbers to intensified border controls and, since April, the practice of turning away individuals at the border who have a prior Eurodac registration. “Given the restrictive judicial assessments regarding benefit reductions, as well as the limited legal options to effectively prevent absconding by individuals subject to deportation, practical implementation presents corresponding challenges” the spokesperson stated.
More than half of the transfers achieved in Hamburg (20 out of 38) occurred after the migrants were taken into “transfer detention”. According to a spokesperson for the Hamburg Interior Authority, the rationale for detention in all cases was the assessed risk of flight. A further 14 individuals in Hamburg have been removed from the center’s records due to “long-term absence.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party identified the six-month timeframe for Dublin transfers as a core issue. Gottfried Curio, an AfD interior policy spokesperson, argues this encourages asylum seekers to travel onward to Germany and incentivizes countries of first entry to defer transfers until the deadline expires, effectively shifting the responsibility for asylum procedures to Germany. Curio advocates for the complete abolition of the transitional responsibility for asylum seekers, describing the Dublin centers as a temporary fix that fails to address the fundamental problems.
The Left party called for a new distribution system. Clara Bünger, the party’s interior policy spokesperson in the Bundestag, stated that the initial results from the Dublin centers in Brandenburg and Hamburg demonstrate that containment and deterrence do not work. Bünger argued that the federal government should instead advocate for a fair and solidarity-based distribution system and the protection of human rights across Europe. She characterized clinging to the Dublin system as political failure and ethically untenable.
The CDU/CSU, SPD and Green parties did not respond to requests for comment.