European Union member states identified nearly 39,000 Moroccan nationals living illegally within the bloc in 2025, down 20.6 percent from the previous year, according to new figures published Tuesday by the EU statistics agency Eurostat.
The data showed Algerians represented the largest group of foreigners found illegally present in the EU, within a total exceeding 719,000 people, followed by Afghans and Ukrainians. Together, those nationalities accounted for more than a quarter of all irregular residents identified across the bloc.
Separately, EU countries refused entry to more than 132,000 foreign nationals at the bloc’s external borders in 2025, a 7.1 percent increase from 2024. Poland recorded the highest number of entry refusals, followed by France, Croatia and Spain, which denied entry to more than 10,000 people.
More than half of all refusals occurred at the EU’s land borders, while 43.1 percent took place at airports and about 3 percent at sea borders, according to Eurostat.
Ukrainians accounted for the largest number of people denied entry into the EU in 2025, at nearly 27,000, followed by Albanians, Moldovans, Colombians, Turks and Serbians.
The figures also showed EU authorities issued more than 491,000 return orders against foreign nationals during the year. Algerians topped the list with more than 45,000 orders to leave EU territory, followed by Moroccans with around 29,000 return orders, then Turkish and Syrian nationals.
France, Germany and Spain were the main countries issuing return decisions, the data showed.
More than 136,000 foreign nationals were ultimately returned to countries outside the EU after receiving deportation or departure orders. Turkish nationals represented the largest group of returned migrants, followed by Georgians, Syrians, Albanians and Russians.
According to Eurostat, voluntary returns accounted for nearly 60 percent of all return operations, while the remainder were forced removals carried out by member states.
add your comment
Terms of publication : Not to offend the writer, people, sacred things, or attack religions or the divine self, and refrain from racist incitement and insults.