Refugees would be allowed to travel home if the visit can prepare them for a later permanent return, as per an Interior Ministry proposal. Currently, a visit to one’s home country can have their refugee status revoked.
As many return to Syria, they find their homes severely damaged or destroyedImage: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP
The German government wants to allow Syrian refugees to travel back to their home country for a limited time without losing their protection status in Germany, a spokeswoman of the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.
Legally, refugees can lose their asylum protection status if they visit their home country which they left in fear of persecution.
Since the fall of Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad last December, Berlin has restarted diplomatic relations with Syriaand reopened its embassy in Damascus.
Why is Germany making this proposal?
Under the proposal, Syrians with refugee status in Germany would be allowed to go back to their home country for a period of four weeks, or two separate two-week periods.
The aim of the proposal is to enable Syrians to make the decision to return voluntarily, a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior said.
“To do this, people from Syria must be able to see for themselves – for example, whether [their] houses are still standing, whether their relatives are still alive and so on.”
Such visits are the prerequisite for enabling large numbers of refugees to return to their country, if the situation in Syria further stabilizes, the spokeswoman added.
The visits should be only permitted “under certain strict conditions” and if they serve to “prepare for a permanent return” to Syria. Those who wish to use this exception would have to register their visits with the relevant immigration authorities, the spokeswoman said.
CSU rejects proposal
Germany’s Christian Socialist Union (CSU) and its Bavarian State interior minister however reject the proposal.
Bavarian State’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann described the proposed visits as “vacation trips under the guise of fact-finding trips.” Herrmann argued against “uncontrolled travel” between Germany and Syria. Instead, he favored a coordinated solution within Europe rather than “national solo efforts.”
The CSU, which won the majority of votes in Germany’s February federal election along with its partner the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is set to take over the Federal Ministry of the Interior in the upcoming government. The union plans to significantly tighten migration policies.
The next day after Assad’s December ouster, German authorities froze asylum proceedings from Syrian citizens, alongside several other European countries.
More than 1 million Syrians, many of whom fled their homeland during the bloody civil war, live in Germany.
