The new German government has agreed to stop family members of refugees with subsidiary protection status from moving to Germany. The controversial move will affect Syrian families in particular.
“Before I came to Germany, I didn’t know it would be so difficult. I just didn’t know. You know, we’re men, and we men are not used to raising children,” said Mohammed. He fled the civil war in Syria in 2014 with his wife, two daughters and two sons to Iraqi Kurdistan.
Life was so difficult for the family there that his wife, two daughters and one son returned to Syria. Mohammed, who did not wish to give his family name, made the decision to make the dangerous journey to Germany through Libya and across the Mediterranean to Italy together with his son, who suffers from cerebral atrophy, in the hope of getting medical treatment and one day being reunited with the rest of the family in Germany.
But two and a half years after arriving in the country, Mohammed still lives alone with his 9-year-old severely disabled son and has no idea when, or if, his wife and two daughters will be able to join him. His second son died after returning to Syria, a loss made all the more painful by the separation.
Housed in shared accommodation at refugee centers, a friend eventually offered Mohammed a place to stay in what he describes as a broken-down house. He said they struggle to make ends meet on social welfare.
Mohammed was granted subsidiary protection status by the German authorities. The classification is for people who do not meet the specific criteria for refugee status under the Geneva Convention but who face a risk of serious harm in their country of origin, including the death penalty, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, or indiscriminate violence in the context of an armed conflict.
There are currently around 351,400 people with subsidiary protection status living in Germany, the majority from Syria. They receive a residence permit, initially for one year. In 2024, this initial period was extended to three years.* They have the right to live and work in Germany and access social benefits. But while asylum-seekers and recognized refugees have the right to reunification with spouses and children under the age of 18 under German and EU law, those with subsidiary protection status do not.
Now, the new coalition government of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) plan to suspend family reunification for those with subsidiary protection status for at least the next two years.
On Wednesday, May 28, the German Cabinet approved the restrictions on family reunification. The draft bill must still be passed in the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, to come into effect.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said. “The country’s ability to integrate had simply reached a breaking point,” adding that cities and municipalities across the country were at their limit.
Subsidiary protection status central to immigration debate
The issue of family reunification for people with subsidiary protection status has been a subject of much political debate in Germany. In 2015, the government led by former Chancellor Angela Merkel granted spouses, children or parents of beneficiaries of subsidiary protection the right to reunification. But this right was suspended in 2016 after just one year.
Since 2018, the families of people granted subsidiary protection have been able to be reunited. However, the German government limits the number of visas it issues to a maximum of 1,000 per month. That has caused a lot of uncertainty for people like Mohammed and his family in Syria, who must contend with long waiting lists, lengthy bureaucratic procedures and a limited number of visas.
In 2024, Germany issued around 120,000 visas for the purpose of family reunification, according to Foreign Office figures requested by Mediendienst Integration, an information service run by the Council for Migration, a nationwide association of migration researchers. Around 10%, some 12,000 visas, were issued to relatives of people with subsidiary protection in Germany.
