Germany’s federal government, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been quietly flying an increasing number of asylum seekers into the country in recent years, according to an information request from the Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) parliamentary group.
According to a report from political newspaper Junge Freiheit that cites the AfD’s request, 2,453 migrants classified as “in need of protection” were brought to Germany by plane from Greece and Turkey between January and August of this year.
Of the nearly 3,000 migrants flown to Germany so far this year, the vast majority are from Syria and Afghanistan. However, asylum seekers from Somalia, the Congo, and the Palestinian territories were also flown in.
Travel costs were passed on to the German taxpayer, the request noted.
Between 2017 and 2020, the Merkel government brought some 9,500 migrants “in need of protection” to Germany. Here, again, travel expenditures were borne by German taxpayers who likely never knew about the operations in the first place. Entries into Germany were made via Turkey, Egypt, Kenya, Greece, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, and Niger.
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, last year a mere 1,500 migrants were flown into the country – the lowest number in four years.
Despite requests from Alternative for Germany (AfD), Merkel’s government could not provide any information regarding the amount of money spent in order to fly the 9,500 asylum seekers into the country. In 2016, however, the government noted that it expected to spend €93.6 billion on asylum seekers by 2020.
Stephan Bradner, an AfD member of the Bundestag, believes that the flow of migrants will soon “pick up speed again” following the end of the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020.
“The fact that fewer people were flown in during the ‘lockdown year’ will likely be compensated for again in 2021, since 2,453 so-called ‘vulnerable people’ were flown to Germany between January to July alone, and were flown in at Germany’s expense,” Bradner said, adding that German citizens should not have to pay for these “luxury trips”.
The news comes after German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas pledged that the government would receive at least 70,000 Afghans, including those that worked with German armed forces during the war, political activists, and journalists.
The decision likely fails to consider the fact that members of the Afghan diaspora currently living in Germany – currently numbering more than 250,000 people – have committed a disproportionate amount of crime in the past few years, as Remix News previously reported, citing criminal statistics from the German government.
According to those statistics, Afghans are five times more likely to commit a criminal offense than native Germans are. In terms of sexual assaults, the numbers are even worse, with Afghans 12.5 times more likely to commit a sexual assault than the rest of society.
