Out-of-control spending on Germany’s migration crisis is straining public budgets at a time when Germans are dealing with a weakening economy and rising inflation.
For those politicians, demographers and media outlets advocating mass immigration as a solution to the financial problems facing pension systems in Western Europe, the harsh reality is that immigration is burning giant holes in national budgets, with Germany the latest case in point.
In 2020, long before the influx of Ukrainian refugees totaling over a million, and continuous flows of illegal migrants totaling into the hundreds of thousands, Germany disclosed that it would spend €64.5 billion over the next four years on migrants, which only included federal spending. That sum amounted to €15 billion a year, but the latest data shows that number was widely off the mark.
Now, the total sum has exploded higher, reaching at least €36 billion in 2023 alone, which includes €26.65 billion in federal spending and €10 billion at the local and state level, according to new data from the Federal Ministry of Finance led by Christian Lindner (FDP). That data also shows that the federal government spent even more on immigration in 2022, amounting to €30 billion.