In 2022, 422,400 people were ordered to leave an EU Member State, according to statistics published on 5 May by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics bureau.
Of this number, 77,530 non-EU citizens were forcibly returned to a country outside of the EU.
In total, over 1 million people were found to be undocumented within an EU Member State and a further 141,060 people were refused entry into the bloc, either at its external borders or at airports in Member States.
“The largest number of refusals of entry were reported by Poland (23,330), followed by Hungary (15,780), Croatia (11,800), and Ireland (9,240),” statisticians remarked.
Eurostat says that Ukrainians accounted for the largest number of entry refusals in the EU (28,890), primarily a result of overstaying their visa-free status. The net largest numbers were recorded for citizens of Albania (15,630) and Russia (10,860).
