Germany

Illegal migration to Germany fell sharply last month after Berlin introduced tougher border-control checks, new figures have revealed.

Federal government statistics showed that there were around 4,353 “unauthorised entries” into the country over its land borders in November compared with 18,384 in the previous month.

There was a significant decline in entries from Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, where Germany has tightened controls, as well as from Austria.

A Thuringian town, like many in Germany, grapples with a massive influx of migrants. Locals talked to us about their fears.

SUHL, GERMANY—Thuringia has no say in how many asylum seekers come to the state—these are the words of Thuringia’s Minister for Migration, Doreen Denstädt, whose admission of helplessness says it all about the migration situation in Germany.

Eisenberg, Hermsdorf, and Suhl are small towns in the eastern German state of Thuringia, where reception centres for migrants have been overcrowded for months. Just like most parts of Europe, Germany has been facing an influx of asylum seekers this year: around 205,000 migrants applied for asylum between January and August this year, marking an increase of 77% compared with the same period last year.

New figures from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) that detail the demographic makeup of serious violent crime suspects in 2022 have been called “frightening” by the chief of the Federal Police Union, who urged both state and federal authorities to take swift action to put an end to the problem.

The BKA’s 2022 “Federal situation report on crime in the context of immigration” revealed that 47,923 German citizens fell victim to violent crimes carried out by immigrants—defined by the office as foreigners who came to the country as refugees or asylum seekers—last year, up 18% from 2021, BILD reports.

Only “serious crimes” like homicide, attempted homicide, manslaughter, rape, assault, and robbery that were solved by police were considered in this particular BKA report.

The number of homeless people in Germany has risen by more than 50 per cent in 12 months, according to a report that found the increase was almost entirely due to a doubling in the number of refugees with no fixed place to stay.

Soaring rents, a sharp rise in the broader cost of living and an acute shortage of social housing have compounded the difficulties of finding space for about a million Ukrainians fleeing the invasion of their homeland and the 148,000 non-Ukrainians who applied for asylum in 2022.

Germany: Nearly €50 Billion on Migration in 2023

Germany’s left-liberal traffic light coalition is set to spend 48.2 billion euros of taxpayer cash on costs associated with migration, up from 42 billion last year, the latest figures from the federal ministry of finance have revealed.

The overall costs covering reception, housing, migration registration, educational support for children and youth, and various social expenses equal Germany’s national defense budget, the Berlin-based daily Die Welt reports.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has admitted that “too many people are coming” into the country illegally and vowed to begin deportations on a “large scale” as Germany is on pace to see more illegal migrants enter the country than during the European Migrant Crisis of 2016.