The reduction in the number of migrants who filed applications for refugee status in Switzerland is linked to the closure of the so-called "Balkan route"
According to unconfirmed data cited by the Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, in 2016 about 27,500 people applied for asylum in Switzerland, which is 30% less than in 2015, when the number of applications reached a record high in the last ten years. As of November 2016, approximately 25,000 people had applied for asylum in Switzerland since the beginning of the year.
One reason for the decrease in the intensity of the refugee flow is the more effective work of Swiss border guards on the country's southern borders. Now, employees of the Swiss Border Guard Corps, upon detecting an illegal refugee, immediately send them back to Italy, thereby implementing the rules for granting asylum in Switzerland, which have become stricter recently.
In addition, the country's migration authority stated that the reduction in the number of migrants who filed applications for refugee status in Switzerland is linked to the closure of the so-called "Balkan route," as well as to a shift in migrants' preferences, who now to a lesser extent consider Switzerland as the final destination of their journeys.
Meanwhile, approximately 8,166 people whose asylum requests are currently under review by the authorities simply "disappeared" by the end of November 2016, as reported by the newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag. As a representative of the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) told the newspaper, "most of those who 'disappeared' in Switzerland have likely left the Confederation, given that they were all already informed that the probability of obtaining permission to stay in the country is practically zero."