Over 500 migrants are planned to be housed in an asylum facility in a village of just 4,000 people. Locals are protesting the move, arguing that the number of migrants is far too high. A facility to house 506 migrants is scheduled to be built in the German village of Rott am Inn.
Heike Bachert, a resident leading a citizens initiative against the facility’s construction, called on Bavaria‘s Prime Minister Markus Söder to halt it. According to German media reports, Söder had previously promised that the asylum center would not be built.
The issue is part of a growing trend across Europe of putting migrants in smaller rural communities, often in numbers that rival the population of the villages or towns they are being transplanted to. In Ireland, the village of Tipperary is also scheduled to be flooded with asylum seekers as the Irish government looks to house 265 non-European migrants there, exceeding the existing population of just 165 Irish people.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron suggested a similar policy in 2022, arguing that the “underpopulated” countryside facing demographic decline could be the best place to send illegals.
“The conditions for their reception will be much better than if we put them in areas that are already densely populated, with a concentration of massive economic and social problems,” he said.