How Home Visits Impact the Status of Syrian and Afghan Refugees in Europe

As European countries continue to assert their open-door policy for refugees fleeing war and persecution in their home countries, they are also emphasizing that they are “not naive” about the potential misuse of international protection.

A growing trend among some refugees traveling back to their home countries has sparked debate in Europe. Such actions violate asylum laws and can lead to the revocation of protected status if proven.

‘Revocation of Asylum’

Germany's Commissioner for Migration, Joachim Stamp (FDP), issued a warning to refugees against traveling to their home countries for leisure or holidays.

In an interview with the German newspaper Bild on August 21, 2024, Stamp emphasized that such actions could result in the loss of their protected status and the possibility of deportation from Germany.

Stamp highlighted the need for coordinated efforts between the federal government, states, and municipalities to prevent refugees from making unauthorized trips to their home countries.

“Germany must remain open and welcoming, but not naive,” he said.

“Authorities must ensure that individuals seeking protection in our country, yet choose to vacation in their homeland, immediately lose their protected status and are not permitted to stay in Germany.”

A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry in Hamburg echoed Stamp’s concerns, noting, “It is understandable that traveling to a country where a refugee has previously faced persecution raises questions about their protection status.”

“If there are travel routes that allow easy access to a refugee’s country of origin, this also suggests the possibility of repatriation,” she added.

This warning comes after an RTL Extra report revealed that certain agencies in Steindamm, Hamburg, were allegedly arranging holiday trips to Afghanistan without informing the authorities.

These reports sparked controversy in Germany, especially since during the asylum application process, a personal interview is conducted to assess the general situation in the refugee’s home country and the risks its citizens face.

According to the Basic Law, individuals who are politically persecuted have the right to asylum in Germany.

Subsidiary protection is granted to those who can justify that they face a risk of severe harm in their home country, such as the death penalty or torture.

High risks, such as those due to armed conflicts, can also be sufficient to obtain subsidiary protection.

This phenomenon is not limited to Germany but is observed in many European countries. For instance, in August 2024, the Dutch Council of State upheld a decision by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) to deny residence permits to Syrian asylum seekers who return to their home country after applying for asylum in the Netherlands, The Syrian Observer reported.

This ruling followed reports of Syrian refugees traveling to areas controlled by the Assad regime in Syria, including a Syrian refugee in the Netherlands who traveled six times to Assad-controlled areas, which the United Nations describes as “unsafe.”

Dutch authorities are calling for stricter immigration and asylum policies, arguing that asylum seekers who return to Syria show that there is no genuine threat to their lives, thus undermining the basis for granting them international protection.

Refugees with protected status in Germany are issued blue passports, which do not allow them to visit their home country.

Illegal Circumvention

However, some Afghans have been found to travel illegally to their home country, using a tactic of avoiding the attachment of a visa to their passport.

Additionally, many refugees in European countries, who have obtained asylum, are securing visas to border countries and then entering their home countries by land using their original passports.

For example, Syrian refugees may travel to Lebanon or Iraqi Kurdistan and then enter Syria by land, with the majority not being security targets.

Therefore, when asylum seekers are granted protected status in a European country due to dangers in their homeland, they are generally not permitted to travel back there.

Refugees returning to their home countries without facing security issues breach asylum laws and affect the classification of those countries as safe or unsafe.

In some countries, such as Denmark, there are even classifications within regions of the same country as safe or unsafe, which determines whether asylum is granted to applicants from that country.

For instance, Denmark classifies Damascus and its surrounding areas, as well as Tartus and Latakia under Assad's control, as “safe” for the return of refugees.

In 2022, Denmark revoked the residence permits of 94 Syrian refugees after declaring Damascus and its surrounding areas as safe zones. Denmark was the first EU country to decide that refugees could be returned to Syria.

Notably, the return of these individuals to Syrian regime-controlled areas coincides with the continued migration of their fellow Syrians toward European countries, risking their lives on dangerous asylum routes, which often result in deaths at Europe's borders.

In July 2024, several irregular Syrian migrants died during their journey near the European borders.

In mid-August 2024, the death of Syrian youth Ahmed Saleh al-Salloum from Deir ez-Zur province was documented; he died in the forests of Bulgaria during his asylum journey to Europe due to extreme exhaustion.

In the same month, Majd al-Hussein from Aleppo countryside, Ibrahim al-Masalmeh from Daraa, and Mohamed Qaddour from Aleppo also died during their journey to seek asylum in Europe.

‘Review of Protection Status’

Commenting on this issue, journalist specializing in refugee affairs B’shar al-Noufal stated that "the Federal Office for Migration in Germany first reviews the protection status granted to a refugee who is found to have visited their home country to ensure that the circumstances that led to the asylum application are still valid.”

In his interview with Al-Estiklal, he said, “If a refugee or someone with subsidiary protection visits their home country or contacts their embassy to obtain identity documents or renew their passport, it triggers a reassessment of their protection status. Such actions suggest that the refugee may not be in danger in their home country.”

“During the cancellation procedures, the Federal Office for Migration in Germany will verify the circumstances of the visit to the home country, whether it was legal or illegal, or for individual reasons such as illness, the death of a family member, marriage or divorce, inheritance settlement, and so on.”

Al-Noufal continued, “According to German immigration laws, the list of individual motives does not automatically lead to conclusions about the reasons for revoking protection status. Each case will be reviewed individually to determine whether the trip should result in the cancellation of protection status.”

With the growing controversy surrounding this issue within European parliaments, especially as governments move towards enacting strict immigration laws, some political parties have started proposing measures to combat this trend.

Politicians from various parties in Germany, including the ruling Social Democratic Party, the Free Democratic Party, and the Green Party, are considering stricter laws to prevent the abuse of refugee status through unauthorized travel to their home countries.

On this matter, Sebastian Hartmann, the spokesperson for internal policy for the Social Democratic Party's parliamentary group, stated, “Germany grants protection to people for humanitarian reasons, who had to flee their homeland due to danger to their life.”

“However, if groups of people return to these home countries for a vacation, then there evidently can be no immediate danger to their well-being.”

The Greens are open to changes in the law. “In principle, there is nothing to prevent travel with blue passports. The important thing is to ensure transparency about the travel destinations and to guarantee control upon re-entry,” said Lamya Kaddor, the domestic policy spokesperson for the Green Party parliamentary group. 

Kaddor suggested that a requirement for entry stamps to be noted in the passport, rather than on loose sheets, could help. She emphasized that travel to dangerous home countries should only occur with the agreement of the BAMF if it is unavoidable.

Stephan Thomae, the parliamentary manager of the FDP parliamentary group, supported this demand, saying, “Anyone who applies for asylum or refugee protection in Germany and then voluntarily returns to the country from which they fled due to war, civil war, or personal persecution, evidently no longer needs our protection.” In such cases, the protection status must be immediately revoked, followed by expulsion and an entry and residence ban, according to the Info Migrants website.