Fact check: Which EU country returns the most irregular immigrants?

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Fact check: Which EU country returns the most irregular immigrants?  A Portuguese politician suggested that the number of irregular migrants sent back by Lisbon is among the lowest in the EU. But is this true?  READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/07/01/fact-check-which-eu-country-returns-the-most-irregular-immigrants  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00Which EU country returns the most irregular migrants?

00:07Irregular migration is a hot topic in European politics at the moment

00:11and often gives rise to dubious claims, the latest of which has come from Portugal.

00:16Minister of the Presidency of Portugal, Antonio Leitao Amaro,

00:20of the ruling centre-right Social Democratic Party,

00:24recently said that the Socialist Party failed to tackle irregular migration

00:29during its roughly eight years in government between 2015 and 2024.

00:34He said that Portugal is one of the countries that returns the least illegal immigrants.

00:40But how do Portugal's returns figures compare to those of other EU countries?

00:45To find out, we can take a look at official Eurostat statistics,

00:49which log the third-country nationals returned following an order to leave each EU country every quarter.

00:55For example, the most recent data set including every EU member is quarter three of 2024,

01:02which shows that Slovakia returned the fewest irregular migrants,

01:05having sent back 55 people, followed by Slovenia with 80 and then Portugal with 85.

01:12On the other side of the spectrum was France having returned nearly 4,000 people,

01:17followed by Germany and Spain with just over 3,000 people each.

01:20It's a similar story every year. In quarter one of 2025, France, Germany and this time Cyprus

01:27returned the most irregular immigrants, according to Eurostat,

01:32with Luxembourg, Slovenia and Slovakia bringing up the rear.

01:35Figures indicate the EU as a whole is ramping up efforts to clamp down on irregular immigration.

01:41Some 29,000 non-EU citizens were returned to a third country in quarter four of 2024,

01:49representing an increase of 24.3% compared to the same period the year before.

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