Poland and the Czech Republic announced on Thursday that they will extend border controls with Slovakia until November 2nd as all three countries aim to slow the flow of illegal migration. Poland’s Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski released a statement stating that checks will be carried out more frequently at checkpoints along the Balkan migration route on road, rail and pedestrian crossings. The temporary measure was extended from 10 days to 20 days.

During a press briefing on Tuesday, the Interior Minister highlighted that 551 irregular migrants were discovered and detained over two weeks. They were heading to Germany through Eastern Europe via the Slovak border as per smugglers’ directions, and many are undocumented. The Czech Republic’s Interior Minister, Vit Rakusan, is working alongside Poland and taking further measures to tighten illegal migration routes by signing readmission agreements with countries where migrants are coming from, such as Uzbekistan. Many governments have agreed that frontier checks have effectively dealt with the flow of illegal migration. Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic are part of the EU’s Schengen open-border zone which allows the free movement of any EU citizen with a single set of rules for controls at external borders.