Less than 48 hours after the toppling of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, Germany, home to the largest Syrian population outside the Middle East, says it will freeze asylum processing for Syrian citizens.
An official from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees told Der Spiegel news magazine on Monday that the move was taken in light of the unclear and unpredictable political situation in Syria, which would place asylum decisions “on shaky ground”.
No further decisions will be made on undecided asylum cases until further notice, which affects 47,770 applications by Syrian nationals.
About 1.3 million people with Syrian roots live in Germany, the vast majority of whom arrived in 2015 and 2016 when then-Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed refugees fleeing Syria’s devastating war.
However, in more recent years, Germany’s political climate has turned sharply against immigration.
After a deadly knife attack in Solingen in August, committed by a Syrian national whose asylum case had been rejected, top government figures, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, called for a deportation ban to Syria to be lifted in the case of criminals.
On Monday, senior members of the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), argued for Germany to begin returning Syrians to their homeland en masse.
The party is leading in polls before federal elections in February with campaign promises that include cracking down on irregular migration and increasing deportations.
“I believe that there will be a reassessment of the situation in Syria and, therefore, also a reassessment of the question of who is allowed to seek protection in our country and who is not,” Jurgen Hardt, a CDU member of parliament, told the broadcaster ZDF.
His party colleague Jens Spahn suggested Germany charter planes and offer 1,000 euros ($1,058) to each Syrian who returns home.
Austria’s caretaker government on Monday also announced asylum proceedings for Syrians would be paused.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, which is also home to tens of thousands of Syrians who fled the war, said in a statement: “A return to democratic normalcy must put an end to migrant flows from the long-suffering country and open the way to the safe return of Syrian refugees to their homes.”
Tareq Alaows, spokesman for the refugee advocacy group Pro Asyl, told Al Jazeera that the decision to stop processing asylum applications will leave people in limbo for months, jeopardise their integration into German society, and fuel a sense of fear and uncertainty.
He stressed that the political situation is neither safe nor stable in Syria and action from the international community will be needed to create a path to democracy.
Spahn is engaging in a “cheap election campaign attempt to win votes on the right-wing fringe of society”, he said.
Andrea Lindholz, a CDU speaker on home affairs, told the Rheinische Post newspaper that a lasting peace in Syria would mean many Syrians would lose their “need for protection and thus the basis of their right of residence in Germany”.
Some figures within the Greens and Social Democratic Party (SPD), both of which have been in government since 2021, pushed back against making dramatic changes to the country’s asylum policy or making refugees the focus of the election campaign.
“I warn against a populist debate with the tenor: ‘Now everyone has to go back immediately,’” the SPD’s Michael Roth told Der Spiegel.
A spokesperson for Germany’s Ministry of the Interior told the Funke media group on Monday that it was not yet clear whether there would be movements of refugees into or out of Syria.
The ministry will not yet assess whether the country is safe for refugees to return to or is a safe destination for deportations, the spokesperson said.
Currently, Germany’s Federal Foreign Office does not consider Syria a safe country of return due to the war and a high risk of torture.
On Sunday, Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed the end of al-Assad’s rule.
“The people of Syria deserve a better future. They have been through horrible things. A whole generation has grown up in war, hardship and humanitarian deprivation, threatened by constant displacement,” Baerbock wrote on X.
‘We can live with dignity
Over the weekend, thousands of Syrians took to the streets of cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Essen to celebrate the overthrow of al-Assad. In the Berlin districts of Neukolln and Kreuzberg, cars draped with the flag of the Syrian opposition circled neighbourhoods, honking their horns, while large crowds gathered to chant and sing late into the night.
Mohammad al Masri, one of the participants, had already tried to find flights from Berlin to Damascus. “My feelings are totally mixed up. I don’t even know if this is a dream or if it’s true,” said the 32-year-old, who has been living in Germany for almost a decade.
Al Masri is from Daraa, known as the cradle of the Syrian revolution, and took part in some of the earliest protests against al-Assad’s rule in 2011.
“Many people died just because they came out and called for freedom. Now, I can see it. … We are finally realising our dream,” he told Al Jazeera. “I can return home, finally meet my parents, meet my friends, sleep in my room again, experience the air, the atmosphere of my homeland.”
After a decade in Turkiye, Roaa, 30, who is originally from the coastal city of Latakia, moved to Berlin, where she works as a software engineer.
“Up until now, we were always worried about our future because we had no country that we can go back to. But now, we have hope, which is just amazing.”
Her family is already planning to return.
“We have hope because we, the Syrian people, love each other and love our country, but it’s going to be a lot of work to get Syria to a place where we can live with dignity, but that’s a very big first step already.
Rana, 34, who took part in protests against al-Assad in Damascus as a student in 2011, hopes to visit her hometown of Qamishli as soon as possible.
In Berlin, she works with women’s shelters to help women and children who are at risk of violence.
“I will be happy to go back and do this to my country and to the women of Syria,” she told Al Jazeera.
Like many other Syrians, she hopes al-Assad will eventually be held accountable for the many atrocities committed under his rule.
“We want justice. We want him in the ICC [International Criminal Court] because he’s a war criminal, and we will get him, God willing.”
Alaows said that once the initial euphoria subsides, Syrians in Germany will face questions about whether a long-term return to their homeland is possible.
“I think it’s very good to talk about the issue of return in Syria because before that, we have to talk about reconstruction. We have to talk about building democracy in Syria and then we have to talk about justice in Syria before people return,” he said.
“The situation is not necessarily safe for many people. … We have to wait and see which direction the country is going in.”