A new German study, based on data that Angela Merkel’s government had kept hidden, has confirmed statistically what Merkel’s opponents have charged: The refugee tsunami to which Merkel opened Germany’s (and all of Europe’s) gates in 2015-2016, has also brought a huge crime wave. If this information had been allowed to reach German voters before last September’s federal elections, media darling Merkel likely would not have won her fourth term as chancellor. Merkel and her Left allies have always denied the refugee-asylee-migrant crime connection. Now that the facts are out (at least a small fraction — most of the data is still restricted) — the Left is trying to spin the evidence to argue for more Muslim migrants and more migrant benefits. Incredible? Yes, but not surprising, considering the fanatical zeal of the “borderless Europe” ideologues, who continue to argue that the EU must accept millions more “refugees,” almost entirely Muslims, and further de-Christianize Europe’s post-Christian culture to make the newcomers feel more welcome.
The new study, published by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, was conducted by a team led by prominent liberal criminologist Christian Pfeiffer. To the extent that the American establishment media hasn’t completely covered up the results of the study, it has, in the main, joined the open borders lobby in spinning it to support even more suicidal migration surges. A good case in point is the January 3 Bloomberg View column by Leonid Bershidsky.
The op-ed’s title, “Germany Must Come to Terms With Refugee Crime,” undoubtedly misled many readers to conclude, at first glance, that finally left-tilted pundits and politicians might be waking up to the harsh realities of their destructive migration policies. However, the subtitle is a giveaway that Bershidsky is headed in another direction: “Rare statistical data on violence by asylum seekers confirm the far right’s fears, but not its recipes.” So, let’s look at both the data and the “recipes” to which the Bloomsberg opinionist refers.
“Anti-immigrant parties have long linked Muslim immigration to crime, but verifiable data to support their arguments have been scarce, not least because police services and statistical agencies have been reluctant to track this aspect of criminality so as not to increase tension in societies,” writes Bershidsky, acknowledging the de facto censorship of inconvenient data that the Merkelites have long denied or downplayed. “That makes a newly published German study an important reference point,” Bershidsky writes. “It’s one of the first attempts to measure the effect the refugee wave of 2015 and 2016 has had on violent crime in Germany, and while it can be construed to support parts of the anti-immigrant agenda, it also suggests reasonable policies to mitigate the problems.”
Admissions but No Mea Culpas or Reversals
An important aside: Note that Bershidsky, following the current canons of left-wing media bias, begins by branding Merkel’s opposition with the obligatory “far right” label. Note too, that the very first word in his opening sentence is “anti-immigrant.” That was not an accidental choice. Open borders advocates routinely and deceitfully use the “anti-immigrant” charge to falsely paint proponents of sensible and sustainable immigration policies as being opposed to all immigration. It is then just another small step for the refugee/migration propagandists to smear as racists and Nazis those who would place rational restrictions on immigration.
However, neither the Alternative for Germany (AfD) nor any of the other major “far right” parties are opposed to all immigration; they oppose migration, the new dogma of the Left, which asserts that all people have the right to migrate wherever they choose, and that national borders must not be allowed to hamper these desires.
The Bloomsberg piece notes that the government-commissioned study uses data from Germany’s fourth-most-populous state, Lower Saxony, home to Volkswagen. Here is one of the important admissions against interest that found its way into the Bershidsky column: “The researchers asked for data that specifically concerned asylum applicants, both successful and unsuccessful, who had arrived in 2015 and 2016. The state police — in keeping with the unspoken taboo — hadn’t published such statistics, but they obliged the research team. It turned out the asylum seekers had reversed the decreasing violent crime trend in Lower Saxony. While such crime went down by 21.9 percent between 2007 and 2014, it was up again by 10.4 percent by the end of 2016. Some 83 percent of the cases were solved — and 92.1 percent of the increase was attributable to the newcomers.”
A few other news stories have mentioned that the asylum applicants are responsible for a more than 10 percent rise in violent crime, but rarely mentioned is the fact that the sharp reversal of the previous downward trend makes the migrant violent crime wave all the more dramatic.
“Again in keeping with anti-immigrant politicians’ arguments, the rise in violent crime can partially be explained by the new arrivals’ demographic structure,” Bershidsky states in another admission. “About 27 percent of them were men between the ages of 14 and 30; that group made up just 9 percent of Lower Saxony’s general population in 2014. And it is young men who commit about half the violent crimes in Germany.” This, of course, was another point that Merkel’s critics repeatedly hammered. An alarmingly high number of the “refugees” were single, young, military-aged men who, predictably, would add to the crime problem, not to mention the likelihood that some would already be members of terrorist groups, and still others would follow a familiar pattern of being recruited into radical Islamic sects once inside Germany.
Admission: Except for Deception on Migrant Crime, Merkel Would Have Lost
Then comes the bombshell admission: “Had the German government admitted this stark reality, Merkel’s political punishment for her generosity to refugees might have been harsher and the AfD might have done even better.” And had Bershidsky and his media mafia pals admitted this stark reality and not covered for Merkel, she surely would have been toast in last fall’s election.
“German government agencies were ill-equipped to deal with such an inflow of asylum seekers, and German society is paying the price for that lack of preparedness,” Bershidsky continues. “Germans, however, are good at acknowledging and correcting mistakes, and the Pfeiffer paper provides some quality clues on what can be done to improve the situation. It’s not quite what the AfD would have done.”
Hmm. What “quality clues” does the Bloomberg scribe find in the Pfeiffer paper? For one, he points to this purported conclusion from Pfeiffer and his study co-authors:
The vast majority of young, male refugees live here without partners, mothers, sisters or other female caregivers. As a result, the violence-preventing, civilizing effect that comes from women is very limited. Groups of young men with a violence-oriented internal dynamic can form among the refugees. Demands for family reunification finds here a criminological justification.
Of course! To solve the refugee/migrant crime-violence dilemma merely import all of the young migrant males’ “partners, mothers, sisters or other female caregivers.” But, naturally, that would also mean — under the “family reunification” rubric — also importing their fathers and brothers, as well as cousins and uncles, whom many Muslim immigrants/migrants attempt to pass off as “brothers.”
It’s not hard to see where this is going. According to Bershidsky, “Germany has learned the hard way that it must have more control over who comes in.” Yes, yes, “But,” he says (and this is the kicker), “it must also move on from the trauma of Merkel’s shock decision to working more meaningfully with the newcomers, who are, for the most part, here to stay, whatever politicians may think of it. That means providing strong language and professional training, offering more housing options and allowing families to reunite to address the gender imbalance…. Integration includes using both sticks and carrots to teach newcomers about both the opportunities that come with moving to Europe and the limits it imposes.”
That’s right, move along now, don’t get fixated on “Mutti Merkel’s” (Mommy Merkel’s) disastrous refugee policies. Stripping away the pretended intentions to exercise “more control,” it is clear from the Merkelites — including Bershidsky and other media allies like him — that the plan is to go heavy on the carrots, while relegating the sticks to the rhetorical type calculated to pacify the angry natives.
The Bershidsky/Bloomberg take on the Pfeiffer study is not surprising. Bershidsky, a Russian “journalist” who is, most likely, an intelligence asset for Putin’s FSB/SVR network, has repeatedly attacked all efforts to enforce reasonable immigration controls as xenophobic reactions of the “far-right.” And Bloomberg has faithfully supported Merkel and reliably denounced and smeared her opponents, most especially the AfD.
French Desperation Undercuts Proposed German “Family Reunification” Plans
The “solutions” proposed by Pfeiffer, Bershidsky, et al, even if they would alleviate violent criminal tendencies of migrant youths — and there is no convincing evidence to support that fantasy — would exacerbate another daunting problem that is also unsustainable. At about the same time that the Pfeiffer study was being released, mayors from seven major French cities sent a letter to the central government appealing for emergency aid, due to the fact that their municipal social services have been completely overwhelmed by the huge influx of Middle East asylum seekers.
“The year 2017 ends with a massive rise in the demand for asylum,” say the mayors, “and the arrival of newcomers puts extreme tension — particularly with the onset of the cold wave — of the classic public and institutional policies.” According to an English translation of the letter, published on December 16, the mayors of Strasbourg, Grenoble, Rennes, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, and Nantes stated: “In a proportion never before known, the mechanisms allocated to housing asylum seekers, led by the State, often with the support of our communities, are indeed completely saturated, despite the steady increase the number of places…. The evidence is there, before our eyes, in our streets, in homes and shelters: there is urgency.”
There is similar urgency also in Germany, though once again Mutti Merkel and her media allies have managed to hide and censor data that might show the true extent of the enormous financial and social costs of Merkel’s migration policies.
Dramatically expanding the refugee/migrant influx in the name of family reunification is a prescription for increased social turmoil, crime, riots, terrorism, and government bankruptcy. The Merkel-induced migration crisis has become one of the most calamitous disasters in modern history. It will take a truly heroic reversal to save not only Germany but all of Europe. Doubling down on the same suicidal policies that produced the crisis will only guarantee that Germany, France, and the other erstwhile Christian nations of Europe enter into a speedier death spiral.
Image of migrant robbing and beating woman: Screenshot of YouTube video
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