1. FACTS AND STATISTICS The geographical place of Greece makes the country the external border of the European Union to the East. Greece has borders with four countries, three of which are not part of EU. The borders of Greece with Turkey, is one of the main points of immigrants trying to enter to Europe. Either by crossing the river Evros or by any other means through the sea immigrants and refugees are trying to enter the Schengen area where as they believe the free movement of people and the lack of any internal borders will allow them to transit to northern Europe. There is also important inflow of irregular immigrants from the Greek Albanian Borders and smaller one from the borders with FYROM. As a result of the EU policy on the issue during the last years (ie the suspension of returns under Dublin II convention) combined with the traditional bureaucratic and administrative problems of the Greek state and the serious economic crisis of the last three years Greece has become a concentration place of a huge amount of irregular immigrants and refugees that arrive with the ambition to manage to travel into Northern Europe and begin a new life there. On this graphic we can see the number of the irregular immigrants who has been arrested by Greek authorities every year since 2006 as it is calculated by the Greek Police.1 160000 140000 120000 100000 80000 Immigrants 60000 Trafickers 40000 20000 0 2013 1 www.astynomia.gr 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006