Almost one in twenty Syrians now lives in Germany. According to Statista, their number had risen to 972,000 by the end of the year. That is 16 times more than in 2014, when there were just under 60,000. 22 million people live in Syria itself.
513,534 of the Syrians living in Germany are currently receiving welfare benefits. This is according to the latest figures from the Federal Employment Agency. Most of the others receive support from the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act.
The number of Afghans in Germany has also exploded in the same period. According to Statista, it has increased six-fold to 419,410 between 2014 and 2023. According to the Federal Employment Agency, almost one in two Afghans, 197,551, receive welfare benefits. Here, too, the majority live on asylum seeker benefits. Afghanistan has around 41 million inhabitants. This means that one in every hundred Afghans now lives in Germany.
And the number is growing. Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has announced her intention to bring a further 10,000 Afghans to Germany. Even security concerns about individuals or forged identity documents are not a problem. The Federal Foreign Office has issued this instruction to the relevant embassies. This is why the public prosecutors in Berlin and Cottbus are now investigating.
The basic income subsidy currently costs German taxpayers almost 50 billion euros a year – and the trend is rising. One in two of the approximately 5.5 million recipients does not have German citizenship, and here too the trend is clearly rising.
However, this could change with the new citizenship law, which comes into force on Thursday. Foreigners who have lived in Germany for five years will then be naturalised. In exceptional cases, the deadline can be reduced to three years. This means that Afghans and Syrians who have been living here since 2019 at the latest will then be able to obtain German citizenship.
Jeder 20. Syrer lebt jetzt in und von Deutschland (jungefreiheit.de)