Brussels, 04/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - The EU external border surveillance agency FRONTEX said on Friday 1 October 2010 that there had been a drop in the number of illegal immigrants entering the European Union. FRONTEX's Director General, Finnish national Ilkka Laitinen, said the fall was due to the financial crisis and changes in the job market. The figures published by FRONTEX show a sharp fall in the number of illegal immigrants arriving in the European Union, from 53,674 in the first half of 2009 to 40,977 in the first half of 2010, a drop of 23.6%. During the second quarter of this year, the number of illegal immigrants detected (mainly from Afghanistan, Asia and North Africa) was down 15% on the first quarter of 2009. Over the same period, the number of illegal immigrants living in the EU fell by 23% and the number of asylum requests fell by 21 %. The main entry point for illegal immigrants is the border between Greece and Turkey, but the many maritime border patrols carried out by FRONTEX has forced would-be illegal immigrants to abandon attempts to arrive by boat and to turn to land crossings instead. More than half of the illegal immigrants arrested are stopped at Orestiada, in the far north-eastern corner of Greece (in the Thrace region). For the first time since it was set up (in 2004), FRONTEX has now funded and arranged a charter flight to send illegal immigrants back. On Tuesday 28 September 2010, French newspaper Le Monde explained that in utter secrecy, 56 Georgians who had been arrested in Poland, France, Austria and Germany, were sent by plane to the Georgian capital Tbilisi, from Warsaw (where FRONTEX has its headquarters). (B.C. transl.fl)