In a televised debate ahead of the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate, CDU frontrunner Gordon Schneider described the ongoing knife violence in Germany as "not a German crime." The opposition leader from Mainz was referring to problems related to migration in schools in the southwest. At the same time, his opponent, SPD state premier Alexander Schweitzer, said that "everything works wonderfully in most schools."

Both politicians also cited statistics on migration, which essentially show the German state’s failure in the area of migration. The SPD state premier, Alexander Schweitzer, emphasized humanity and order, while stating that he is proud of diversity.

„I am proud of our immigrants and our diversity. Those who cannot stay here must leave the country. We must be careful to deport the right people, not the wrong ones,” he said.

In Rhineland-Palatinate, about 1,000 people have to leave the country, 40 percent of attempts fail, and in 2025, only 379 deportation orders were actually issued in the state, which is a decrease of 457 compared to the previous year.

In 2025, 22,787 people were deported from Germany, but nearly two-thirds (about 60 percent) of the attempts failed—32,855 cases before the handover, often because the people involved could not be found. Added to this are 923 asylum seekers who disappeared from reception centers in Rhineland-Palatinate between July 2024 and December 2025.

Germany: migrants are the perpetrators in more than 10 percent of murders

Of the suspects in crimes known to the German Federal Criminal Police Office in 2024, 8.8 percent were temporary migrants, such as asylum seekers, and 35.4 percent were non-German citizens.

According to the data, of the 1.967 million suspects in known crimes in 2024, 172,203 were temporary migrants, such as asylum seekers, persons granted asylum or other temporary residence rights, or persons residing in the country illegally.

Approximately one-third of the suspects, nearly 697,000 people, were non-German citizens. This higher number also includes those with longer-term or permanent residence rights. This group accounts for approximately 15% of the total population.

„Das ist keine deutsche Kriminalität“ – CDU-Kandidat Schnieder entscheidet TV-Duell für sich https://t.co/Pf6IEgfqxg pic.twitter.com/cRwWgaeM7Z

— WELT (@welt) March 11, 2026

The second largest group of temporary migrants by nationality were Syrians, who accounted for 21.2% of the group and 20.5% of suspects.

The nationalities with a higher proportion of crime suspects than the proportion of people living in Germany were Algerian, Moroccan, Georgian, Tunisian, Nigerian, and Albanian citizens. These countries together accounted for about 2.1% of temporary migrants, but about 15.5% of suspects, according to DW.

Temporary migrants were suspects in approximately 12% of murder cases and 12% of theft, financial crime, and forgery cases. In cases of sexual offenses, bodily harm, and drug-related charges, the proportion was between 8% and 10%.

The German authorities and the statistics office warned of an increase in the proportion of organized crime involving temporary migrants, which was 13% overall and above average in the areas of organized crime related to drug offenses and human trafficking.

Four out of five suspects were aged 40 or younger

More than half of the migrant suspects were aged 30 or younger, and three-quarters were male. About one-third of the suspects appeared to be involved in two or more cases. Those aged 40 and over accounted for only 18% of suspects, while migrants accounted for 37.6%.

Among temporary migrants, the number of victims of crime increased by 5% compared to the previous year, exceeding 70,000. This represented 212 attacks, 23 of which were violent crimes, targeting refugee reception centers, representing a 38.6% increase over the previous year.