Immigration

The Turkish Coast Guard last year rescued 23,676 irregular migrants in the Aegean Sea and Mediterranean Sea and 15,794 of them were pushed back by Greek authorities into Turkish waters.

In 2021, a total of 619 pushback incidents took place, according to data from the Turkish Coast Guard.

Turkey's Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has slammed Greek authorities, claiming that the Greek has thrown three migrants into the Aegean Sea, which resulted in one of the victims' death.

Soylu said on Twitter that two of the migrants were rescued while the other one had died following an incident off the coast of the Çeşme district in Turkey's İzmir province.

The Turkish Coast Guard has rescued dozens of irregular migrants in the Aegean Sea who were pushed back to Turkish territorial waters by Greece.

Acting on information that there were migrants on a dinghy off the coast of the Dikili district of the province of İzmir, units launched an operation and rescued 24 people who were pushed back to the Turkish waters by Greek authorities.

Turkish forces on Nov. 1 held some 164 irregular migrants in provinces in the country's east, along with rescuing 101 asylum seekers from sea after an illegal pushback by Greece, security sources said.

Gendarmerie forces in the Ardahan province stopped three vehicles at a checkpoint and caught 27 irregular migrants as well as three drivers suspected of human trafficking.

Immigration Minister Tesfaye cited the falling spending on non-western migrants as vindication of the government’s strict migration policy

Turkey has proposed the European Union a substantial migrant deal to ensure an efficient cooperation in tackling the growing migrant deal and told the bloc that it cannot exclude itself from this problem by solely offering money.

The head of Germany's national labor agency says the country needs significantly more skilled immigrants to plug gaps in the work force as the population ages, AP reports.

The BBC footage shows Greek border policemen pushing asylum seekers in an extremely brutal way, shooting in the air, not giving them water, insulting them... while poor people can barely keep their balance in an overcrowded boat that is on their way to the EU coast.

Greece on June 7 announced that applications for asylum filed by individuals in Turkey will no longer be accepted. 

"Turkey is designated a safe country for asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia," said a joint decision by the Greek Foreign Ministry as well as the Migration and Asylum Ministry.

A high percentage of Europeans have negative feelings towards Muslims and immigrants, writes Weiss magazine, citing a large-scale sociological survey in eight European countries.