A senior official from Germany’s Hesse region has sparked fresh debate over immigration and crime, calling for immediate deportation of foreign nationals convicted of serious offenses—regardless of prison conditions in their home countries.
Manfred Pentz, the Hessian Minister for International Affairs and a member of the CDU, told Bild that German taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for incarcerating foreign murderers, rapists, and violent offenders. Instead, he argued, those convicted should be swiftly sent back to their countries to serve out their time.
“It costs us around €200 a day to keep someone behind bars here,” Pentz pointed out. “That’s a hefty bill for taxpayers—money we could be saving by sending foreign criminals home from day one.”
Recent figures from 2024 paint a stark picture. Among murder and manslaughter suspects, 1,285 didn’t hold German citizenship—442 of them were refugees. At present, German prisons are housing over 1,200 foreign nationals convicted of murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter. Together, they’re costing Germany an estimated €90 million per year.
Pentz highlighted the case of Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a Saudi national responsible for a deadly vehicle attack at the Magdeburg Christmas market that killed six and injured hundreds more. If he serves a full 20-year sentence in Germany, the state would spend roughly €1.5 million on his imprisonment alone.
“The fact that German prisons may be more comfortable than those abroad shouldn’t protect these individuals from being deported,” Pentz insisted. “If someone commits such heinous crimes here, they’ve forfeited any right to stay.”
Although the newly formed CDU-led coalition has committed to deporting convicted criminals from countries like Syria and Afghanistan, there’s no current plan to remove them before they complete their sentences in German facilities.
Legal barriers remain a challenge. Human rights laws are frequently invoked to block deportations, with defense attorneys citing risks of abuse, poor prison conditions, or separation from family. However, Pentz believes those concerns shouldn’t outweigh the public’s interest or the rights of taxpayers.
Outgoing Interior Minister Nancy Faeser recently shared that while foreign nationals make up just 15% of Germany’s population, they accounted for over 40% of all criminal suspects in 2024. Violent crimes rose by 1.5% to 217,277 cases, with knife attacks climbing sharply to more than 15,700 incidents—up significantly in states like Bavaria.
In total, German authorities identified over 2.1 million criminal suspects last year. Of those, more than 913,000 were non-citizens—a 41.8% share—while the number of German suspects dropped nearly 4%.
Pentz’s comments come as pressure mounts on Germany’s political leaders to address rising public concern over crime and the growing costs of incarceration. Whether the nation will adopt tougher deportation policies remains to be seen—but the conversation is heating up fast.
