Bremens’ immigration policy has been a disaster and is contributing to housing and social problems, including an exploding crime rate, said Bremen’s Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer of the far-left Social Democrats (SPD).
The city is “completely overwhelmed with taking in so many people,” said Mäurer while speaking with German newspaper Weser-Kurier. He said that the problems have “worsened.”
Bremen is arguably the most left-wing major city in Germany and has been ruled by the Greens, SPD, and the Left Party for many years.
Mäurer has been there since the start, helping guide the city’s radical policy towards immigration. The 73-year-old has been in office for 16 years. It is only now that he blames “massive immigration” for the housing shortage and “enormous difficulties” in daycares, schools, and at job sites.
At the same time, he notes that crime is exploding.
Bremen has been one of the most open cities to mass immigration over the last decade. In 2018, the city declared itself a “safe haven,” and that designation is still in place. The declaration signed at the time states: “We welcome refugees – and are ready to take more people.”
Many cities across Germany promoted this stance under the motto, “We have space.” Many of these same cities are struggling with a refugee crisis, and at the German state level, almost all states have periodically closed migrant intake due to an inability to deal with the burdens on security, education, healthcare, and housing.
Remarkably, since a string of victories by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in state elections, suddenly left-wing parties are talking tough on immigration. The Green federal agricultural minister, for example, produced a widely discussed commentary piece about how his daughter is sexually harassed by foreign migrants.
Now, the SPD and other parties are suddenly speaking up against their own immigration policies. Mäurer is calling for the establishment of asylum centers on Germany’s borders to facilitate deportations and backs the creation of a central deportation authority.
“If the problems are not solved,” says Mäurer, “it is no wonder that more and more people are turning away from our democratic community.”
Mäurer also talks of a spiraling crime crisis in his liberal bastion of a city.
“We have seen a massive increase in robberies since the summer of 2023, which we can clearly attribute to migration,” said Mäurer: “The majority of these crimes are committed by young men from North Africa.”
In fact, the problem has grown so serious that Bremen’s police have a special force called “Young Robbers,” to target these foreigners. They have 1,000 open investigations and 350 suspects identified. So far, there are 66 arrest warrants open.
However, not everyone is on board with Mäurer in Bremen. The Left Party said he is harming the “agreed line of a humanitarian migration and refugee policy.” Meanwhile, the Greens state that immigration is “an opportunity for the economic and social future of our state.”
Even within his own party, Bremen’s Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte (SPD) has a different view. He warned against “rhetorically heating up the debate, because that does not solve a single problem, but only poisons the social climate.”
Jan Timke from the opposition Alliance Germany, spoke to Junge Freiheit about Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer’s statements, saying that to combat gang crime in Bremen, “parliamentary motions were submitted weeks ago for the establishment of a closed residential care facility for repeat and intensive offenders as well as for a medical age assessment for unaccompanied foreign minors.”
However, as Timke stated, “the red-green-red coalition rejected our initiatives in the state parliament, as did the opposition CDU and FDP.”
