European countries suspend Syrians’ asylum cases, amid calls for deportations

Many European countries have put asylum applications from Syrians on hold, after rebels seized the Syrian capital and President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia on Sunday following 13 years of civil war.

More than a million Syrian asylum-seekers and refugees live in Europe, almost all of them hosted in either Germany (59 percent) and Sweden (11 percent), according to UN figures. The influx of those displaced by the war, as well as large-scale immigration generally, has become a major political issue throughout the continent.

Since Monday, the processing of decisions on asylum claims for Syrian nationals were paused, or set to be paused, indefinitely in Belgium, Britain, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden, with all those countries saying there was not a sufficient basis for now to determine the conditions on the ground.

Austria’s caretaker government went a stop further. In addition to ordering a stop to the processing of asylum applications by Syrians on Monday,  Interior Minister Gerhard Karner also told the ministry to prepare a program of “orderly repatriation and deportation to Syria.”

Denmark, by contrast, paused processing applications on Monday, but said Syrians whose applications had already been rejected, and who had been given a deadline to leave, would be allowed to remain longer due to the current uncertainty.

The Netherlands will withhold for six months decisions on applications it received less than 21 months ago, Asylum and Migration Minister Marjolein Faber said in a note on Monday.

‘Berlin has become my second home’

Nearly a decade after he arrived in Germany from Syria and took a selfie with then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, Anas Modamani has finished his university studies and has a German passport.

“Berlin has become my second home, I will definitely stay here,” Modamani said Tuesday. “I managed it” — a reference to Merkel’s famous slogan “We will manage it,” coined as Germany faced the challenge of integrating hundreds of thousands of migrants.

As Syrians took to the streets of Berlin on Sunday, far-right leader Alice Weidel wrote on social platform X that anyone celebrating a “free Syria” in Germany “evidently no longer has a reason to flee. He should return to Syria immediately.”

With a German election approaching and the government under longstanding pressure to reduce irregular migration, some mainstream opposition politicians also appeared eager to kickstart the return of Syrians.

On Monday, prominent conservative lawmaker Jens Spahn suggested on n-tv television the government could say that “for everyone who wants to go back to Syria, we will charter planes for them, they will get a starting fund of 1,000 euros ($1,055).” He stressed, though, that it will take time before it’s clear whether things have stabilized.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, whose conservative party has talked tough on migration, said Tuesday that many Syrian refugees are now “superbly integrated in our country, have a job and are urgently needed here” and no one is thinking of getting such people to leave Germany.

“Those who have already integrated well are still cordially welcome,” Herrmann told Deutschlandfunk radio Tuesday. “But it is clear that there are also people who have been here for 10 years and don’t have a job and haven’t integrated well, and then it’s right to help them return to their homeland” if Syria stabilizes.

‘I consider my life to be here’

In Athens, Najem al-Moussa was delighted when news of Assad’s overthrow first beamed from the television in his tiny Athens apartment, but said he dreads returning to his native country.

“I consider my life to be here. Not just me but my children,” said al-Moussa, a lawyer by training who works as a cook in Athens and has been transfixed by the television news for days. “The life that was provided in Greece, my country was not able to offer.”

Al-Moussa and his wife Bushra al-Bukaai fled Damascus in 2015 after the birth of their second child. They spent everything they had on a two-year journey that took them to Sudan, Iran, Turkey and eventually Greece.

They now have five children who are all in school and speak fluent Greek. None speak the Arabic of their parents’ homeland.

“When we talk, they ask: ‘Daddy, can we really go back to living in these areas? How did you live there before?’,” Al-Moussa said.

His wife agrees. “I cannot imagine my children building their future in Syria. Not at all.” she said, their youngest son in her lap.

‘It’s difficult to think about returning’

Syrian vet Hasan Alzagher was in a German language class in the city of Erfurt on Monday when he heard that his asylum application for Germany, which he hoped would be finalized by the end of the year, was put on hold.

“This is mentally devastating. It’s difficult that after you set your mind to live here, build a new life here, learn the language and integrate in this country, you now have to return to your homeland where basic necessities are still missing,” he told Reuters by phone.

In fear of being recruited into the army or a militia group, Alzagher, 32, said he fled the city of Raqqa in 2018. He spent time in Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey before heading to Germany in 2023.

“The fall of Assad is a huge joy for all Syrians, but we who came here and went into debt to finance this journey, every time we arrive in a new place, we have to start over again. It’s difficult to think about returning to Syria now.”