Over 20 Million People In Germany Have Immigration Background – Report

Posted by Eric Ojo Featured, Latest Headlines, World News Friday, April 21st, 2023

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – No fewer than 20.2 million people in Germany have immigration background, according to a new report released on Thursday by the German Federal Statistics Office.

This amounts to 24.3 percent of the total population of the European nation. Nearly one in four people living in Germany, according to the report, have an immigration history – either they were born elsewhere or are direct descendants of those who did,

The agency defined people with an immigration history as those who have themselves immigrated to Germany since 1950, as well as their direct descendants, the “second generation.”

“The increase of people with an immigration background had grown by 6.5 percent or 1.2 million people compared to the previous year”, the report said.

It also explained that refugee migration played a major role in this, especially due to the war in Ukraine, adding that the number of immigrants who came to Germany recently rose by 7.3 percent, mainly due to refugees from Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan, more than the number of direct descendants born in Germany to immigrant parents, which rose by 4 percent.

In 2021, the number of people living in Germany with a immigration background stood at 27.3 percent According to the federal government’s migration report, that’s an increase of 0.6 percent compared to 2020.

The number of people in Germany with immigration background continues to rise. A government report noted changes due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the federal government’s migration report, that’s an increase of 0.6% compared to 2020. Notably, more than half of the people with a migration background residing in Germany are also German citizens.

In addition, the number of naturalizations in 2021 was at an all-time high, with a total of 131,595 people becoming German citizens that year.

The German government stressed that this high number was to be attributed to authorities having to catch up on naturalizations after the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when due to the many restrictions placed on public life, only around 110,000 people managed to obtain citizenship.

In the 2021 statistics, people from other European countries led the list of naturalizations, with around 63,000 people from other European countries obtaining a German passport that year.

This was followed by people who had come to Germany from Asian countries, with around 47,000 Asians being granted German citizenship in 2021.

Migration to Germany was on the up once more following travel restrictions and lockdowns during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic the previous year.