Germany Admits They Have Lost Track of 130,000 Refugees

Most governments pride themselves on their ability to keep track of their citizens. They want to know where you live and where you work, they litter the streets with surveillance cameras, and they want us all to carry IDs at all times. So what does it say when a country like Germany loses track of thousands of people? Since governments are normally really good at controlling and surveilling their populations, it means that they’re quickly losing control of their country.

The German government recently admitted that they don’t know the whereabouts of over 130,000 refugees. That is 13% of 1.1 million recent arrivals to Germany. When they first arrived, they simply didn’t go to the reception centers that they had been directed to. The government knows when and where they first arrived, but these people never registered for asylum.

And that’s just what the German government will admit to. The number could be as high as 600,000, most of whom have likely moved on to other EU nations. And this situation is only going to get worse from here. The refugees are pouring into Europe at twice the rate they were last year, and 2015 saw twice as many asylum applications as the year before that. If Europe doesn’t shutter its borders completely, then they won’t be very European for much longer.