Angela Merkel has again defended her decision to open the borders in 2015, insisting welcoming the influx of more than a million third world migrants was “not a mistake”.

Speaking at a town hall dialogue in Brandenburg on Tuesday evening, the German Chancellor said the move was necessary against the backdrop of an “extraordinary situation” in the form of conflict in Syria and Islamist terrorism in the Middle East.

Her decision to suspend the Dublin Regulation on asylum with her announcement that “refugees” were welcome — moves which triggered an unprecedented wave of third world migration to Europe — were “not something to disown”, she told the audience.

“If there were mistakes made in the context [of the 2015 crisis], taking people in was not one of them,” Merkel insisted, adding: “The mistake was not going in advance to places hosting lots of refugees, like Lebanon and Jordan, to see how people were doing there.

“Therefore we have since learned about helping refugees locally,” she said — as if no-one had advocated such a policy previously.

The German politician’s opening of EU borders was greeted with an outpouring of praise from left-neoliberal international media outlets, many of which — along with global bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — gushed that the move was sure to boost German prosperity.

Report: Merkel Govt May Have Let In Thousands of War Criminal Migrants https://t.co/QHb57134kw — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 10, 2019

But despite the government’s splashing out tens of billions of euros per annum on housing, welfare, and integration for newcomers since the crisis, 65 per cent of the “refugees” who arrived to Germany in 2016 are still not in work, as Breitbart London reported in January.

Results of a large-scale study by the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), which interviewed 7,500 migrants, were branded “sobering” by local media after revealing how 20 per cent of employed migrants were only working “mini-jobs”, while even refugees in full-time employment earned a median salary of just 1,564 euros (£1,371) gross per month.

Germany has also seen a rise in violent crime since the influx, with the country’s Interior Ministry last year admitting that asylum seekers, refugees, and illegal immigrants carried out at least 447 killings and attempted killings in 2017.

Germany: Migrant Crimes Concealed to ‘Avoid Stirring Up Prejudice’ https://t.co/43nRhMVToQ — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 13, 2019