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Back in October, The Economist magazine—bellwether of the Euro-establishment—ran the headline “Angela who? Merkel’s legacy looks increasingly terrible.”

“[E]very month that goes by brings a reminder of how her reign propelled Germany into the mire. . . For Mrs Merkel’s part, she led Germany as if in a make-believe world, letting it enjoy an extended geopolitical and economic nap from which it still needs to wake up.”

We’ve been trying to tell everyone exactly this about Merkel for a decade at least. I still wonder if she wasn’t a Communist sleeper agent sent to exact East Germany’s revenge on Cold War West Germany. (Recall that Merkel grew up in East Germany.)

One issue conspicuously missing from The Economist‘s broadside was immigration. Today that gap is being filled by the Wall Street Journal, which reports, “Germany Opened Its Doors to Migrants. Now It’s Struggling to Cope.” Here are the three key charts of the story, from German government sources. The first shows that the “non-citizen” population (a euphemism for immigrants) in Germany has doubled in just the last ten years:

Notice that the surge in asylum applications came when Merkel threw open Europe’s borders in 2015:

And here’s what bothering a lot of German citizens:

This detail from the story worth noting for when the AfD surges in the coming February election:

More than 60% of the people in Germany who depend on government benefits for income are foreign-born or are second-generation migrants. Noncitizens, who make up 15% of the population, perpetrated 41% of all crimes in 2023, up from 28.7% in 2014, according to police statistics. . .

Germany’s income-support system entitles anyone unemployed for longer than a year—and any worker whose income is below a certain level—to a tax-free stipend. In addition, the state pays for rent, heating, medical bills, school supplies, daycare, even mortgage interest payments. A family with three children 14 and older can get €2,425 a month in cash payments alone. . .

German authorities have said it can be easier for noncitizens to qualify than for citizens because the benefit is means-tested, and authorities often struggle to estimate assets abroad.

“The cushier the safety net, the more unattractive it becomes to take up work, especially here where we have a lot of jobs that pay the minimum wage,” said Steffi Ebert, head of a work placement agency. . .

Millions of migrants now depend on government support. In the rural district west of Suhl, 35% of the recipients of income support are noncitizens, compared with almost none a decade ago. . .