Non-citizens make up 87.3% of the 148,000 people subject to outstanding arrest warrants in Germany, despite being just 15% of the population, official statistics show.
The data, released by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in response to a parliamentary question from Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker Sebastian Münzenmaier, showed that dual German citizens made up another 1.5%.
Germans were the largest single group with 16,671 suspects wanted for arrest, followed by 16,123 Romanians, 12,721 Poles, 6,869 Georgians, and 6,696 Turks.
“The figures speak for themselves: the overwhelming majority of criminals wanted on arrest warrants do not have a German passport,” Mr Münzenmaier told Welt.
He said the government should respond by implementing permanent and more complete border controls, and immediately deporting foreign criminals and forcing them to serve prison sentences in their countries of origin.
Heiko Teggatz, chairman of the German Police Union, said the data showed the country had a “security policy problem”, but said personnel shortages prevented state police forces from being able to track down people with outstanding arrest warrants.
Statistics released in July in response to a separate AfD request showed that foreign nationals made up more than half of all gang rape suspects last year, while 80% of victims were German citizens.
Immigrants are heavily overrepresented in German crime statistics, and were responsible for 41% of all violent crimes, 38% of murders, and 48% of thefts and robberies in 2025, according to data published in April.
Foreign nationals were also responsible for 36% of all sexual offences, and 39.1% of rapes and sexual assaults, with rape rates up 72% since 2018.
Header image credit: (Augustin-Foto) Jonas Augustin on Unsplash.
