On Monday, the German Interior Ministry released figures showing the number of crimes committed by migrants surged 52.7% in Germany last year. In 2015, migrant crimes totaled 114,238; in 2016, they totaled 174,438 crimes. Migrants represented 8.6 percent of all crime suspects in Germany in 2016, up from 5.7 percent in 2015.
Violent crimes in general, including rape, murder, and bodily harm, shot up 6.7% in 2016; violent crimes by German nationals rose 1% in 2016, those by migrants nearly doubled.
The German police define migrants as refugees and rejected asylum seekers.
While migrant crime was surging, crimes committed by German citizens dropped 3.4% to 1.41 million.
The coming election in autumn 2017 is expected to revolve around the issue of the huge number of refugees.
Karsten Woldeit, a politician for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany in Berlin, reminded the public that his party “predicted and warned about this development after the uncontrolled entry of hundreds of thousands of migrants in 2015.”
Syrian immigrants represented roughly 37% of immigrants to Germany in 2016 and were responsible for 17.6% of crimes.
In January, Hans-Georg Maassen, Germany’s domestic security chief said that the number of Salafists — or fundamentalist Sunni Muslims — in Germany had risen to more than 9,700, up from 3,800 people in 2011. He added, “It’s of great concern to us that this scene is not only growing, but it is also very diversified. There is not just one, two, three or four people who have a say. Rather, there are many people who dominate this Salafist scene. And all these people have to be watched.”