Austria deports more migrants than it takes in asylum seekers

Austria removed more migrants from the country than it received in new asylum applications during the first half of 2026, a reversal officials say hasn’t happened in more than two decades.

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told reporters at a Tuesday press conference that Austria logged 4,903 total asylum applications between January and June — a 44% drop from roughly 8,800 filed over the same period last year. Of those, about 2,000 were first-time applications from newly arrived individuals; the remainder involved repeat applicants, family members, and children born in Austria. Over the same six months, more than 7,000 people were deported or otherwise removed from the country. Mr. Karner called it a shift toward “negative migration,” according to a translated Austrian Press Agency dispatch published by VOL.AT.

Syria and Afghanistan each accounted for roughly a quarter of applications, the Interior Ministry said. According to the ministry’s figures, approval rates for Syrian applicants have fallen sharply this year, to 32%, down from 67% in 2024. Afghans and Iranians fared better, with approval rates of 69% and 76%, respectively. The ministry has pointed to the fall of the Assad government as a factor behind the shift for Syrian cases, alongside a broader reassessment of existing protections and a push toward voluntary and forced returns.

Family reunification, once a major entry pathway, has all but disappeared: Just 48 people arrived under the program in the first half of the year, officials said.

The turnaround follows the FPO’s breakthrough finish in Austria’s September 2024 election, when the party took 28.8 percent of the vote — its strongest showing ever and the first time a far-right party topped a national ballot since World War II, according to the BBC. Rather than bring FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl into government, the conservative OVP instead formed a coalition with the center-left SPO and NEOS, shutting him out of power. The coalition has continued Austria’s restrictive migration policies.

Austria is also among several EU countries — alongside Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece — working to set up migrant “return hubs” in non-EU countries, an idea supported by Italy, whose government has operated migrant facilities in Albania since last year, per Euronews.

Mr. Kickl has continued pressing for tougher measures since last month’s deadly van-and-knife attack at a Berlin Pride event, which German officials are treating as Islamist terrorism. A 21-year-old German national of Lebanese descent rammed a van into the crowd, killing one person and injuring 29 before he was shot dead by police, CBS News reported, citing German authorities.

In the attack’s aftermath, Mr. Kickl said it exposed the consequences of what he called a failed European asylum and migration policy, and called for an immediate halt to asylum intake, tighter border security and the swift deportation of criminal and illegal foreigners, according to Austrian outlet heute.at.