The Left Party office apparently helped with smuggling

An office of the Left Party in Saxony apparently helped smuggle migrants. According to sources in the state parliament, seven North Africans were observed by police officers illegally entering Görlitz from Poland last Saturday evening. Shortly thereafter, according to documents available to WELT, a Skoda Octavia stopped and initially drove four of the seven people to the local office of the Left Party.

When the German driver drove to the other three migrants to pick them up a little later, he was stopped by the federal police. Criminal proceedings were initiated against him for smuggling in foreigners, as confirmed by the Görlitz WELT public prosecutor.

The federal police did not want to comment on the facts when asked.

The seven migrants are six Egyptians and one Algerian. According to the documents available to WELT, the Algerian stated that he had traveled to Germany via Belarus, Lithuania and Poland using smugglers; he only got to know the Egyptians on this route.

The so-called evidence video, which is customary for smuggling, was found on his mobile phone, with which the arrival of the group in Germany was documented. After these videos have been sent, payments are usually made to the smugglers who were involved in the successful illegal migration project.

The Algerian's mobile phone also contained the telephone number with which the German driver organized the pickup. This cell phone number is registered to the Görlitzer Left MP Mirko Schultze, to whose office the migrants were driven on Saturday evening.

The member of parliament explained to WELT when asked about the processes: "There is always the situation that people come to my office for help, whether they are homeless or migrants without looking at their residence status."

Schultze argues: “There is a group of volunteers in Görlitz who provide first aid, I make my office available to them. In my office, people are usually given a hot drink and given advice on where to find police officers to apply for asylum. For such cases of help, there is a stand-by cell phone that is registered to me, which we use as part of our voluntary work.”

The question from WELT whether the Skoda with which the migrants were picked up was registered to Schultze because the license plate had his initials "MS", the politician expressly denied.

Asylum immigration to Germany has been increasing significantly since last summer: from a monthly level of around 8,000 to roughly 13,000 initial applications with fluctuations. According to BAMF, there were around 16,000 in August. Above all, these are people who are traveling on from other EU countries without permission, who are moving on before or during the procedure or who have already been rejected.

Because of this extremely high level of asylum immigration in European and historical comparison and the special situation caused by hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Ukraine, many cities and districts are reaching their breaking point and have to expand living space as well as social and integration support.

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