Nearly 13 per cent of residents in central-European powerhouse Germany are now foreign-born according to the national statistics bureau, in news that comes shortly after the revelation that nearly a quarter of all Germans possess a migrant background.
The foreign-born population of Germany rose 5.8 per cent in 2017, a slightly less pronounced growth than the previous year but nonetheless continuing the steep growth of the open-border nation’s foreign-born residents, the national statistics office Destatis revealed.
The rise took Germany’s foreign population to approximately 10.6 million in a country of 82 million — meaning 12.8 per cent in Germany are “persons of exclusive foreign nationality”.
Growth in 2017 was of a different character to other recent years, it was revealed, as numbers of migrants arriving from outside the European Union were lower than at the peak of the migrant crisis, which saw reportedly millions arrive on Europe’s shores. In 2017, 61,000 Syrians arrived in Germany compared to 260,000 in 2016, while over 200,000 arrived from Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria together.
Regardless, Syrians now make up the third largest group of foreigners in Germany, behind Turks as the largest group. Yet as reported by German broadsheet Die Welt, the number of Turkish foreigners officially living in Germany is rapidly decreasing, as those residents take German citizenship and cease to be officially foreign in the eyes of the Destatis bureau.
Despite that shift from registered foreigner to new German citizen many immigrants take, the distinct demographic change being experienced by Germany is still recorded. Breitbart London reported in 2017 that over one fifth — and approaching one quarter — of German residents were then of migrant background.
Then reckoned to be a record-breaking 22.5 per cent of all German residents, the figure today of people with recent foreign ancestry is likely to be even higher. According to the survey of migrant-background households taken annually since 2005, in the past five years, residents with roots in the Middle East increased by 51 per cent, while those with African roots had increased by 46 per cent.