Berlin: German authorities say more than 54,000 migrants, including failed asylum-seekers, received approval for government funding to return to their homeland 2016, paving the way for a significant increase in voluntary departures.
Germany is keen to increase the number of rejected would-be refugees leaving the country after 2015's influx of 890,000 migrants.
Interior Ministry spokesman Harald Neymanns said Wednesday that the total funding approved for returnees in 2016 was $22.5 million. He said about 35,500 people obliged to leave Germany did so voluntarily in 2015, but noted that the two figures can't immediately be compared because the number of people who actually departed in 2016 isn't yet clear.
Neymanns stressed that Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere "has always said voluntary returns are always preferable to deportation."
