Due to the crisis in the Arab world, Frontex noticed in the first quarter of 2011 a massive influx of illegal immigration at the Italian island of Lampedusa. In consequence, for the first quarter since reporting another Member State than Greece (Italy) reported the highest number of illegal border-crossings into the EU. At the Greek border with Turkey, the detections of illegal border-crossings decreased 60% across a wide range of nationalities, particularly Afghans and Algerians. Nevertheless, the Greek land border with Turkey still constituted more than half of all illegal border-crossings at the EU-level, excluding the arrivals in Lampedusa. The main hub for this migration route remains Turkey, which is also the main point of embarkation for attempts to illegally enter the EU via the air border. This border section has, to a large extent, not been affected by the civil unrest in North Africa.

In late 2010 nationals of Albania were granted visa-free travel to the EU, which had significant and demonstrable consequences on their international travel and modi operandi for illegally entering the EU. For example, in the first quarter of 2011 Albanians were detected in much lower numbers both illegally crossing the border into the EU and illegally staying within the EU, which reflects the new legality of short-term travel to the EU for Albanian nationals. In any case, more Albanians were refused entry into the EU than any other nationality, because of alerts in the Schengen Information System. Combined with the fact that fewer Albanian facilitators of illegal migration were detected than ever before, these figures clearly indicate that Albanians, who were previously illegal but circular migrants to the EU, are now less detectable in illegal migration statistics.