EU countries deport 48 Albanian failed asylum seekers

TIRANA, Feb. 5 – Forty-eight Albanians have been deported back home from France, Spain and Belgium, where they had applied for the political asylum and had been denied.
The 48 Albanians will now be punished with a five-year ban from traveling the Schengen area. Albanian authorities have called on their citizens to respect the visa-free regime, which allows for a three-month stay.
There has been an increase in Albanian asylum seekers since 2010, when Albania received free visa regime with the Schengen countries, which encompasses much of the EU. But the number’s for Albania’s Western Balkan neighbors are higher.
EU countries have complained that thousands of people from the Western Balkans were applying for asylum and that meant a higher cost to their budgets. The EU then made a serious call to the Balkan countries to stop such an influx or they would re-impose the visa regime. The EU recently passed a ruling allowing separate countries to re-impose the visa regime for certain countries if they decide so after having an influx of illegal refugees.