Germany has come under fire after reports surfaced accusing its authorities of secretly transferring migrants across the border into the Netherlands under the cover of darkness, intensifying tensions over migration policy in Europe.
According to an investigation by Dutch newspaper De Gelderlander, German police allegedly dropped off 158 migrants in Dutch border towns over the past three months without notifying local authorities. The report followed the circulation of a viral video showing individuals being released from a German police van in Venlo—a border city in the southeastern Netherlands—during the night earlier this year.
In October alone, German officers were accused of abandoning 63 migrants on Dutch territory. Residents in the nearby town of Heerenberg, which straddles the German–Dutch border, have reported being approached by strangers seeking to borrow phones or access Wi-Fi.
The Dutch Ministry of Asylum and Migration, however, downplayed the allegations, saying such transfers were part of existing bilateral agreements between both nations.
“Cold and warm transfers have been taking place for years, regardless of the reintroduction of border controls,” a ministry spokesperson said.
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The ministry added that between December 2024 and September 2025, a total of 690 foreign nationals had been formally transferred from Germany to the Netherlands under these arrangements.
The controversy comes amid growing domestic pressure on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose government has adopted a tougher stance on immigration in an effort to stem the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Germany remains a top destination for asylum seekers in Europe, continuing a trend that began after former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s landmark 2015 decision to admit hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees at the height of the civil war. Merkel’s assurance that “we will manage” has since been contrasted with Merz’s recent statement that “we will not manage,” reflecting a major policy shift in Berlin.
The European Union recorded approximately 239,159 illegal border crossings last year, according to data from Statista, with Syrians accounting for more than 44,000 of those entries. As migration pressures persist, the reported actions by German authorities have sparked renewed debate over burden-sharing, transparency, and coordination among EU member states.