10 districts in Istanbul closed registration for immigrants

Turkish government will stop registering immigrants in ten of Istanbul’s 39 districts, as the number of immigrants in those districts reached unhealthy levels, Turkish minister of interior Suleyman Soylu said. 

Soylu made these remarks after a convention to assess the immigrant situation in Istanbul. 

Students and residents who bought a flat in those districts could continue to live there, Soylu said.

Earlier this year, as many districts have become overly populated with immigrants, the government made a 25% rule which says that in any given region in Turkey, the population of foreign nationals settled in or temporarily living in that area must not exceed 25% of the overall population.

Turkish authorities also made it mandatory to have a registered address as proof for the immigrants to renew their residence permit.

In June, Soylu said that Turkey had a new strategy to fight irregular migration, adding that the deportation rate increased from 11 percent last year to 53 percent.

Some 2.6 million people have been prevented from illegally entering Turkey from the country’s borders, while 1.3 million irregular migrants have been caught inside the country and 335,000 of them have been deported, the minister noted.

Turkey, which hosts mlore than 4 million refugees, has been a key transit point for asylum-seekers who want to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing Syria and Afghanistan.