INVASION OF EUROPE: Nearly a Third of Migrants in Germany Claiming to be Syrians aren’t from Syria

German officials said Friday that nearly a third of all asylum seekers arriving in Germany and claiming to be Syrian in fact come from other nations, even as Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière called on European nations to take radical new steps to curb the region’s refugee crisis.

A woman holds a placard which reads 'traitor of the 

people' during protests against German Chancellor 

Angela Merkel's visit to a shelter for asylum-

seekers in Heidenau on 26 August 2015 (AFP)

So far this year, Germany has received 527,000 asylum seekers — more than any other nation in Europe. Tobias Plate, an Interior Ministry spokesman, acknowledged estimates Friday that roughly 30 percent of asylum seekers who claim to be from Syria are making erroneous claims, and come from other countries instead. Because of the civil war in that country, roughly 87 percent of Syrians are successfully winning asylum in Germany.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, center, 

and Dimitris Avramopoulos, right, E.U. commissioner for 

Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, talk to asylum 

seekers during a visit to a reception station in 

Rosenheim, Germany, on Sept. 17. (Marc mueller/EPA)

Plate said that rather than a “concrete statistic,” the number was an estimate based on the perceptions of authorities on the ground, including the German Federal Police, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, and Frontex, Europe’s border agency.

“It is an indication,” he said at a news conference in Berlin, of how hard it is to know the true nationalities of asylum seekers, many of whom arrive without passports.

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In an interview Friday with The Washington Post, de Maizière — a longtime ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel and one of the key officials dealing with the refugee crisis in Germany — said Europe needs to enact sweeping changes to its refugee system. He added that German attempts to aid refugees had been misinterpreted by migrants in far-flung nations such as Afghanistan as a green light to come to Europe.

That, he said, needs to change.

“We cannot close Europe,” he said. But, he added, “we cannot open Europe totally for millions and millions of poor people in the world or even for all of those coming from conflict zones. Impossible.”

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