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Swiss authorities complete 75% of foreign criminal expulsion orders

Nearly 75% of expulsions ordered in Switzerland in 2023 will be carried out
By the end of 2023, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) had recorded the controlled departure under police escort of 1,531 people. Keystone-SDA

Swiss courts ordered the expulsion of 2,250 foreign offenders in 2023. By mid-2024, around 73% of them had left Switzerland, either voluntarily or under police escort, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) said on Tuesday.

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Roughly one-third of the departures during this period were voluntary, SEM said in a statement.

By the end of 2023, the secretariat had recorded the controlled departure under police escort of 1,531 people. Since such expulsions require a certain amount of preparation, court orders from the end of last year could only be executed in 2024.

Around 140 additional people ordered to be expelled in 2023 left Switzerland under police escort during the first half of 2024, taking the deportation rate for 2023 to almost 73%. As further evictions are planned, this number should rise further.

+ Deportation now a reality for foreign criminals

Around one-third of those who were expelled from Switzerland were nationals from a European Union or European Free Trade Association (EFTA) country, mainly Romania (9%), France (5%) and Italy (5%).

Third-country nationals came mostly from Albania (17%), Algeria (10%) and Morocco (4%). More than 90% of departures were men, mostly aged between 18 and 54, according to SEM statistics.

Adapted from French by DeepL/sb

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