'Asylum Shopping': 8,000 Migrants Already in EU Made Second Asylum Applications in Germany

http://bit.ly/2IGJLCH | More than 8,000 migrants granted refugee status in European Union member-states made a second "inadmissible" asylum application to Germany last year.

Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) confirmed that in 2017, 8,210 recognised refugees attempted to hedge their bets and made the second application - nearly tripling from 2,997 the year before.

Though such applications are considered "inadmissible" as the migrants have been granted asylum in another EU nation, only a fraction was returned to the EU country responsible for them, with that figure being, at most, 1,428.

Refugees can also sue to prevent deportation, with the presiding judge at the administrative court of Berlin, Christian Gau, telling the newspaper that there are "a large number of decisions made by the administrative courts to deport beneficiaries to Italy and other EU countries that have been prevented, especially where the refugee is sick or a single parent".

Referring to it as "asylum shopping", Mr. Gau said that it is "a matter of course that in other states recognised persons entitled to protection who are illegally residing in the Federal territory must be returned to their host country.

"That's because preventing so-called asylum shopping is one of the goals of the Common European Asylum System," he said, admitting: "But the reality looks different."

The problem of "asylum shopping" was a noted phenomenon beginning almost immediately after the migrant crisis, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the gates of Europe to more than one million third world citizens, with most migrants heading towards richer northern EU states with generous welfare systems.