The number of illegal immigrants in Europe has remained the same for 16 years and represents less than 1% of the population
A study indicates that the illegal immigrant population has remained stable since 2008 and is less than 1% of the population. It has increased in Portugal because it suffered a decline during the last crisis. Current figures are in line with 2002.
The number of illegal immigrants in Europe represents just 1% of the population in 12 of the countries studied and has remained stable since at least 2008, according to a study by the European project MirreM , which observes and measures irregular migration movements in the region. Between 2016 and 2023, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom will have welcomed between 2.6 million and 3.2 million illegal immigrants. Between 2000 and 2008, the estimate was 1.8 million and 3.8 million immigrants in an irregular situation in the same countries.Read as many articles as you want, all the way to the end.With a PÚBLICO subscription you have unlimited access to all content and can cancel whenever you want.
The authors of the report, published this Thursday and signed by Denis Kierans and Carlos Vargas-Silva, say that the estimated number of irregular immigrants in recent years has increased in Austria, Germany and Spain; decreased in Finland, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands and Poland; and remained unchanged in Belgium, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. These conclusions were reached by comparing the most recent MirreM data (which depends on information sent by the authorities of each country, some of which has not been updated since the last decade) and the count carried out by the Clandestino project in 2008.
Finland appears to be the country with the smallest illegal immigrant population among the countries considered: there are between 700 and 5,000, according to data collected in 2020, which corresponds to just 0.1% of the resident population . The countries with the largest number of illegal immigrants are the United Kingdom (594,000 to 745,000 people) and Germany (600,000 to 700,000 people), but the reported data is already seven years old. Greece, which has between 100,000 and 200,000 illegal immigrants, is the country with the highest percentage of illegal residents (0.9% to 1.9%), but the data goes back to 2017.
Some countries were left out of this analysis because they were not considered in the study carried out in 2008 — and this was the case of Portugal. "We are unable to provide an updated aggregate estimate for all EU countries and the United Kingdom, as the Clandestino project did in 2008", the authors of the state admitted. However, the countries that were not considered "contribute relatively little to the total population and to the number of residents born in countries not covered by the free movement protocols".
But some data allows us to lift the veil on what is happening here: although the number of immigrants in an irregular situation doubled between 2017 and 2018 , reaching almost 28.5 thousand cases, the latest report from the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) stated that since 2019, fewer and fewer foreign citizens in an illegal situation have been detected. If in 2019 there were 4,834 notifications for voluntary departure from the country, in 2020 (the year in which the validity of documents and visas was extended by decree-law) the number dropped to 2,182. In 2023, there were only 658
.Speaking to Lusa News Agency, João Miguel Carvalho, a researcher at ISCTE involved in the MirreM project, considered that illegal immigration in Portugal increased between 2008 and 2024, mainly because 2008 saw a significant decline in immigrants due to the economic crisis. However, if the most recent data were compared with even older data from 2002, the number of immigrants in an irregular situation would be "similar to what we are experiencing today" thanks to the more favourable economic environment — one of the biggest drivers of population movements.
- Log in to post comments