EIL Article

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Source : Statistics Explained (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/) - 23/03/2016- 05:29 1

Statistics on enforcement of immigration legislationData extracted in October 2015. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database .

This article presents the European Union (EU) indicators on the enforcement of immigration legislation (EIL) .It provides statistics on non-EU citizens who were refused entry at the external borders of the EU, apprehendedas being illegally present or subject to an obligation to leave the territory of an EU Member State. 12 The indi-cators in this article can be regarded as an official record of persons subject to the enforcement of immigrationlegislation, providing a general overview of the outcomes of territorial surveillance and control procedures.

Following the need for more information on enforcement of immigration legislation resulted from the recentevolution of the immigration flows, several EU Member States 3provided on a voluntary basis more variablesrelated to the return of non-EU citizens based on Eurostat methodology.

According to the available data, irregular migration to the EU decreased significantly between 2008 and 2011,then stabilised over the next two years. In 2014 there was an increase in both the number non-EU citizensapprehended due to illegal stay and the number of persons issued with an order to leave. The situation forindividual EU Member States however varies in trend and level due to specific national factors such as nationalwealth, history and culture, geographical position, type and length of borders, border infrastructure, bordercontrol, judicial procedures, national policy and the legal framework related to irregular migration.

Figure 1: Non-EU citizens subject to the enforcement of immigration legislation in EU, 2008 –14 Source: Eurostat (migr_eirfs); (migr_eipre); (migr_eiord); (migr_eirtn)

1The EIL statistics refer to the concept of ’external borders’ for all EU-28 Member States and EFTA countries even if some arenot in the Schengen area. The ’external borders’ of the Schengen area do not coincide with the ’external borders’ of the EU-28Member States due to the opt-out of the United Kingdom and Ireland and the inclusion in the Schengen area of the non-EUMember States Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland and the fact that Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Romania are notyet members of the Schengen area.

2See footnote 4

3Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia andSlovakia.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:European_Union_(EU)http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/migr_eil_esms.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Immigrationhttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:EU_Member_Stateshttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Migrationhttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:EU-28http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:EFTAhttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Schengen_areahttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Schengen_areahttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:EFTAhttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:EU-28http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Migrationhttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:EU_Member_Stateshttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Immigrationhttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/migr_eil_esms.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:European_Union_(EU)


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Map 1: Non-EU citizens found to be illegally present in the EU-28 and EFTA, 2014 Source:Eurostat (migr_eirfs); (migr_eipre); (migr_eiord); (migr_eirtn)

Figure 2: Number of non-EU citizens found to be illegally present in the most affected EUMember States, 2008–14 Source: Eurostat (migr_eipre)

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Figure 3: Non-EU citizens found to be illegally present in the EU-28, by sex and age, 2008 and2014 Source: Eurostat (migr_eipre)

Figure 4: Main citizenships of persons found to be illegally present in the EU-28, 2013–14 Source:Eurostat (migr_eipre)

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Figure 5: Main citizenships of persons ordered to leave an EU-28 Member State, 2013–14 Source:Eurostat (migr_eiord)

Figure 6: Main citizenships of persons in fact returned to their country of origin, 2013–14 Source:Eurostat (migr_eirtn)

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Figure 7: Third-country nationals who have left the EU-28 territory, by type of return, 2014 (%)(¹) Source: Eurostat (migr_eirt_vol)

Figure 8: Non-EU citizens refused entry at the external borders of the EU-28, 2014 Source:Eurostat (migr_eirfs)

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Table 3: Non-EU citizens refused entry at external borders, 2008–14 Source: Eurostat(migr_eirfs)

Table 4: Persons refused entry by border type , 2014 Source: Eurostat (migr_eirfs)

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Figure 9: Top citizenships of persons refused entry in EU-28 by type of border, 2014 Source:Eurostat (migr_eirfs)

Figure 10: Grounds for entry refusal at the external borders of the EU-28, 2012–14 (¹) Source:

Eurostat (migr_eirfs)

Main statistical findings

Number of apprehensions in the EU has increased by almost 50% between 2013 and2014

Following a period of decrease (from 2008 to 2013), in 2014 the number of non-EU citizens found to be illegallypresent in the EU-28, peaked at around 626 000 (see Figure 1). This represents an increase of about 46 %compared with 2013, and about 8 % compared with 2008. However, the situation recorded does not necessarilyreflect a growth in the numbers of non-EU citizens staying in EU territory illegally, since some Member Statesmay have changed their policy on the checks they perform, thereby influencing the number of apprehensions 4.

4Apprehension of person means such person is found to be illegally present.

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The most affected Member States in 2014 with over 50 000 illegally present persons apprehended were Germany(128 000), France (96 000), Greece (74 000), Sweden (73 000) and United Kingdom (65 000). These five MemberStates accounted for 70 % of all apprehensions recorded in the EU. Figure 2 lists the 10 Member States with thehighest number of apprehensions in which Spain (48 000), Austria (33 000), Italy (25 000), Belgium (16 000)and Bulgaria (13 000) count together for about 22 % of all apprehensions. Therefore, most of the apprehensions(over 90 %) were recorded in these 10 countries while in Malta, Ireland, Estonia, Denmark, Luxembourg andLatvia the number of apprehensions were considerable lower in 2014 with less than one thousand cases (see Map

1).

Most of the non-EU citizens apprehended were young males aged between 18 and 34 (41 % of the total numberof apprehensions).

Citizenship and other characteristics of non-EU citizens found to be illegally presentin the EU

Over a seven-year period (2008–14), Albania ranked first as the source country of non-EU citizens found to beillegally in the EU (see Table 1). However this overall ranking masks a significant decrease from 2008 to 2012,due to a drop in Albanian migration to Greece, a trend which reversed in 2013 and 2014. Over the 2008–14

period, Afghanistan came second, with over 40 000 apprehensions annually from 2008 to 2011, a figure thatdecreased considerably in 2012 and 2013 (34 105 and 23 750 respectively) and increased to 39 690 in 2014 (seeTable 1).

Focusing on the last two years, the highest increase in 2014 compared with 2013 concerned Syrians (111 345 vs32 025), an obvious consequence of the conflict taking place there (see Figure 4). A similar trend was observedfor Eritreans, with apprehensions rising by 140 % (from 10 080 in 2013 to 50 585 in 2014).

The data disaggregated by sex for the number of apprehended non-EU citizens illegally present in the EU-28 indicate that irregular migration is predominantly a male issue (see Figure 3). However, the share of femalethird country citizens apprehended has increased from 9 % in 2008 to 19 % in 2014. As regards the age charac-teristics of these citizens, 77 150 children (aged 0–17) were apprehended on grounds of illegal stay in the EU-28

in 2014, which is over 12 % of all non-EU citizens found to be illegally present in the EU. Close to 62 % of thoseapprehended were aged 18–34 and almost 26 % were aged 35 or over (see Figure 3).

Number of non-EU citizens ordered to leave has decreased between 2008 and 2014

In 2014 over 470 0005non-EU citizens were issued with an order to leave an EU Member State, 36 % of whichwere recorded as being returned to a non-EU country (168 925 persons) (see Figure 1). The gap between thedecisions to leave and the effective returns represents the unknown cases (e.g. voluntary returns without theauthorities being informed, disappearances of persons after issuance of the leave order or cases not properlyrecorded or not confirmed by the border authorities).

The total number of orders to leave EU countries decreased by 22.1 %, from 603 000 in 2008 to 470 000in 2014, while the number of non-EU citizens returned to a non-EU country decreased by 20.1 %, from about211 000 in 2008 to about 169 000 in 2014.

Disparities in migration policies, as well as administrative, statistical and legal (legal acts, judicial procedure,etc.) systems contribute to differences among EU Member States. Any changes in these factors can influencethe resulting statistics.

Of the 470 000 persons ordered to leave an EU Member State in 2014, 18.5 % were in France, 15.7 % inGreece, 13.9 % in the United Kingdom and 9.0 % in Spain. These figures represent a decrease from 2008 foreach of these countries. In the case of Greece and Spain the figures in 2014 were less than half of the 2008values. In Greece, the orders to leave the country fell from 146 335 orders in 2008 to 73 670 in 2014 and in Spain

from 82 940 in 2008 to 42 150 in 2014 (see Table 2). Other countries that also recorded significant numbers in5Data for Austria not included.

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Entry refusals by border type

In 2014 the largest number of refusals were recorded at the external land borders (81 %), followed by refusals atair borders (16 %). Only a small proportion of non-EU citizens were refused entry at sea borders (3 %). Theseshares were very stable over the years.

Besides Spain and Poland, Hungary and Croatia also recorded a high number of entry refusals at their landborders in 2014 (around 13 000 and 8 000 respectively) (see Table 4). Other countries with a high number of entry refusals at land borders, but with lower figures, are: Greece (5 500), Slovenia (3 800), Romania (3 500),Lithuania (3 200), Bulgaria (1 900) and Latvia (1 800). As regards air borders, the United Kingdom (11 700)and France (9 000) had the highest numbers of refusals, followed by Spain (4 600), Italy (4 500) and Germany(3 600). Refusal at air boarders were also high in the Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium.

The United Kingdom and Italy reported the highest numbers of refusals at sea borders (3 200 and 2 500respectively) for 2014. France, Spain, Greece, Ireland and Romania were also among the EU Member Stateswith the highest number of refusals at sea borders, but their reported figures were much lower (600, 500, 200,100 and 100 cases respectively).

Citizenship of the persons refused entry to the EU-28The top five countries of citizenship of persons refused entry at EU-28 external borders in 2014 were Morocco(168 735), Ukraine (16 150), Albania (14 275), Serbia (9 445) and Russia (9 375). Moroccans were refusedentry mainly at the land border of Spain; Russians and Ukrainians at the land border of Poland; and Serbiansat the land borders of Hungary and Croatia. Albanians were mainly refused entry at Greek, Italian, Croatian,Slovenian and Hungarian land borders as well as at Italian sea and air borders (see Figure 9).

Albanians made up the highest number of refusals at sea borders (2 510), mostly at Italian sea borders (1975), followed by Moroccans arriving in Spain (655). Ukrainian citizens recorded the third highest number of entry refusals at sea borders in 2014, with most being refused in the United Kingdom.

In terms of entry refusals at EU-28 air borders in 2014, Albanians again made up the highest number (3

565), mainly at the air border of Italy (1 395). Algerians were second (2 595), mainly at the air borders of France (1 660). For these countries of citizenship there was a significant increase of refusals at air borders. Inthe case of Algeria, the rank changed from fourth in 2013 to second in 2014 (see Figure 9).

Grounds for entry refusals

In terms of the reasons for entry refusal6in 2014, the highest number of non-EU citizens (around 42 000) wererefused due to ’no valid visa or residence permits’ (see Figure 10). Numbers were considerably lower comparedwith 2013 figures (42 310 vs 61 240). About 28 000 non-EU citizens were also refused entry due to ’purposeand conditions of stay not justified’, an increase of almost 3 000 cases in the last three years (25 675 in 2012 vs28 360 in 2014).

The most significant decrease over the last three years was recorded for ’an alert has been issued’. Casesdecreased from 15 370 in 2012, to 12 145 in 2013 and 12 200 in 2014. Refusals for five other reasons haveremained stable and below 3 000 over the last three years.

Data sources and availability

The EIL statistics are based on administrative data provided by the national authorities in line with the re-quirements of Regulation 0862/2007 on the European statistics on migration and international protection. Thecompilation of these statistics draws on the terms used by the Schengen Borders Code, as in the case of the

external borders concept (Council Regulation (EC) No 562/2006) and reasons for refusals of entry. Map 46The classification of the grounds of entry refusal comes from the Schengen Borders Code .

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illustrates the external borders of the Schengen area.

The EIL statistics do not include asylum seekers who are transferred from one EU Member State to anotherunder the mechanism established by the Dublin Regulation ( Regulation 0343/2003 and Regulation 1560/2003), since these cases are related to Dublin statistics. Please see the Schengen area map here .

Context

The enforcement of migration law refers to two main issues: control of EU external borders and managementof unauthorised non-EU citizens found on the territory of an EU Member State.

In this respect, coordination between EU Member States regarding border controls has increased significantlyover the last decade. The most noteworthy development concerns Regulation 2007/2004 which established theEuropean Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the MemberStates of the European Union ( FRONTEX ) as well as Regulation 0562/2006 of the European Parliament andof the Council establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders(Schengen Borders Code).

Regarding the management of irregular migrant populations, the so-called ’Return Directive’ (0115/2008) ’came into force at the end of 2010 to establish common standards of return for irregular migrants. The directiveprovides for clear, transparent and fair common rules for return and removal, the use of coercive measures, de-tention and re-entry, while fully respecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the persons concerned.

In addition, Regulation 1052/2013 established the European Border Surveillance System (EUROSUR) hasbeen established. This specifies ’a common framework for the exchange of information and for the cooperationbetween EU Member States and FRONTEX. The aim of this system is to improve the situational awareness andto increase reaction, capability at the ’external borders’ of the EU for the purpose of detecting, preventing andcombating illegal immigration and cross-border crime and contributing to ensuring the protection and savingthe lives of migrants (EUROSUR)’.

As regards measuring the enforcement of immigration legislation, the progress made so far on collecting har-monised data results from the adoption of Regulation 0862/2007 , in particular its Articles 5 and 7.

The regulation facilitates the evidence-based decision-making of European migration policy7, providing specifi-cations on the data that should be submitted by EU Member States on the number of non-EU citizens refusedentry at EU external borders, the number of non-EU citizens found to be illegally present and the number of removals of non-EU citizens whose presence was unauthorised.

All in all, irregular migration remains a phenomenon difficult to quantify at a time when an effective andhumane return policy is an essential part of an open migration policy. Some of the indicators presented hereprovide guidance to that effect.

See also

• All articles on asylum and migration

Further Eurostat information

Database

• Asylum and managed migration , see:

Enforcement of Immigration Legislation (migr_eil)

7Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council of the implementation of Regulation 0862/2007 ).

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Third country nationals refused entry at the external borders — annual data (rounded)(migr_eirfs)

Third country nationals found to be illegally present — annual data (rounded) (migr_eipre)

Third country nationals ordered to leave — annual data (rounded) (migr_eiord)

Third country nationals returned following an order to leave — annual data (rounded) (migr_eirtn)

Third-country nationals who have left the territory by type of return and citizenship (migr_eirt_vol)

Third-country nationals who have left the territory by type of assistance received and citizenship (migr_eirt_ass)Third-country nationals who have left the territory to a third country by type of agreement procedure

and citizenship (migr_eirt_agr)

Third-country nationals who have left the territory to a third country by destination country and citi-zenship (migr_eirt_des)

Methodology / Metadata

• Enforcement of immigration legislation (ESMS metadata file — migr_eil)

Source data for tables, figures and maps (MS Excel)• Enforcement of immigration legislation: tables and figures

Other information

The EU legislative framework covering the enforcement of migration law and the operational cooperation be-tween EU Member States is the following:

• Regulation 562/2006 establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of personsacross borders (Schengen Borders Code).

• Regulation 1052/2013 for the establishment of the European Border Surveillance System (Eurosur).

• Directive 2008/115/EC on common standards and procedures in Member States for returning illegallystaying third-country nationals.

• Regulation 862/2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection.

• Communication COM(2004) 412 final of 4.6.2004: Study on the links between legal and illegal migration.

External links

• United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), Trends in International MigrantStock: The 2013 Revision

• OECD: International Migration Outlook 2015

• Immigration in Europe: Trends, Policies and Empirical Evidence, IZA DP No. 7778, November 2013 ,Sara de la Rica, Albrecht Glitz, Francesc Ortega

• Directorate General for Migration and home affairs (HOME)

• European Migration Network (EMN)

Notes

View this article online at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index. php?title=

Statistics_ on_enforcement_of_immigration_ legislation

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