More immigrants are heading to Britain after EU extended border-free zone eastwards, German police warn

UK Daily Mail
Tuesday January 22, 2008

German police fear thousands of illegal immigrants together with victims of people-trafficking gangs have swept into Western Europe since the end of border controls with eastern states last month.

They said that since passport controls were ended on December 21, 620 illegal immigrants have been caught by police patrols in the area of Germany's border with Poland and the Czech Republic, as the border-free Schengen Zone was extended to East European countries.

But they say the figures is almost certainly a mere fraction of the number who have made it across the frontier successfully.

By comparison, in the whole of the first six months of last year, only 480 illegal migrants were caught.

Lars Wendland of the GdP German police trade union in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder on the border with Poland said: "Whatever number we have caught, you can be sure that ten times that number have successfully crossed the border in this period."

German police had earlier warned of chaos and a flood of illegal immigrants when the Schengen Zone was expanded to include former communist states in Eastern Europe last month.

The Schengen Zone now allows for borderless travel between 24 countries in Europe and in December took in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta. But the UK and Ireland are not part of the zone.

German police had called for the Schengen expansion to be delayed and had even marched in protest in eastern parts of Germany, warning of rising crime in the country as a by-product of the abolition of border controls.

Locals in towns on the border began buying up expensive alarm equipment and some even weapons to defend themselves against an expected crimewave.

Konrad Freiberg, chairman of the GdP union, said: "Our fears have come true."

Full article here.